


Shame is the Shadow of Love

by ninhursag



Series: Outside By the Blue, Blue Moon [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-03
Updated: 2007-09-02
Packaged: 2017-10-31 05:06:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninhursag/pseuds/ninhursag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica Moore had a history of her own before she met Sam.  Now Jess might be gone, but that hasn't stopped people in Sam's life before. Especially when Sam and Jess have some unfinished business to see through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was sort of horrendous to write. To get to the final version I ended up excising one of my favorite plot threads due to lack of space and coherency. Then I let it sit for a few months. Anyway, I'm much more happier with what I've got here.

It's wet and the fog is thick, dulling and scattering the sulfur yellow streetlights. Sam doesn't know if that will matter, that the fog and drizzle is covering the moon when the ritual speaks of moonlight, that the rain keeps snuffing his candles and all the lights are artificial. He doesn't think anything really matters, nothing but the day and the time, but he doesn't know.

The grass is wetter than the air, soaking through the knees of his jeans, but he can hardly feel it. It's one minute to midnight. His palms are pressed flush against slick smooth granite, the raised imprints of a carved name under his fingertips.

He can hear himself breathe. Thirty seconds. He counts them off in his head, all thirty, adding mississippis to make sure it's the right count. The church bell strikes the hour and Sam lets himself sink down, his head bowed.

"Jess," he says. "Jess. It's Samhain Eve." His eyes are closed tight against the light, against the rain on his face, running down his cheeks. "Jess, ma'am, please." She had never said no, not when Sam said please. Not once.

"Jess," Sam begs. "I need you. Please." And then he can feel it, a softness against his cheek, like the touch of living skin. Warm and light. His heart races, but he can't open his eyes. He can't.

"Hello, Sam."

Sam's eyes snap open. There's a hand on his cheek and yellow hair in his eyes and he remembers. He remembers something he never knew.

\

It didn't start with Sam Winchester.

The first time Jess met Connie Jenkins she was eighteen, a brand shiny new Stanford freshman with a fake ID burning a hole in her pocket and an older boyfriend who was into things Jess had barely thought of before. Things that made her legs twitch and her face warm, that had her walking into a scene she knew nothing about with his hand on the back of her neck and electricity in her spine.

But it wasn't until Connie that it ever felt real.

A room full of people, but Connie was all that Jess saw. And Connie then, at nineteen, was electrifying, clear skinned as a model, dressed in red leather, with a slim, pretty boy on a leash whom she was ignoring and a silver amulet like a bull's eye between her breasts. Her eyes were green and vivid and they locked right onto Jess from across the room, like she felt it too. Like Jess was the first and only thing in the room that she could see too.

Jess stared right back for a long moment, on the balls of her feet, waiting, uncertain. She stood stock still, right up until Connie crooked her little finger and Jess breathed out. Then she pulled her hand out of her boyfriend's and started walking, kept walking like she didn't even hear him when he called after her. That was the day the world shifted.

The first time Jess saw Sam Winchester she was twenty and she'd held enough leashes of her own to know what that was like. He didn't look back at her that day and nothing changed, not for a while, not until everything changed.

That first time Sam was just a guy, an extremely good looking guy, who'd said something insanely clever that made Professor Adams stand up straighter and smile, which was a minor miracle for that sour faced bastard. Jess leaned forward in her seat and Connie, who was sitting next to her even though they weren't really speaking right then, elbowed her in the ribs.

"That's Sam Winchester. He's into the scene," Connie whispered. Jess didn't look at her, but she could picture Connie's face, smiling, bright, apologizing without apologizing. Connie had said as many sorries as she was going to and now she was acting like she hadn't done a damned thing wrong, even though this was a peace offering and both of them knew it.

Jess kept her eyes on Sam, who fiddled with his pen and didn't seem to notice anything outside the narrow world of his notebook and the professor. Nothing like he knew he was being offered up like some kind of sacrifice in someone else's game.

"You know him?" Jess asked shortly, not conceding anything with her voice.

"Sort of." Connie's tone was soft, conspiratorial. "I know enough. So, do you want him or not?"

Fuck it. Kid was clearly a big boy. If he wasn't interested he didn't have to play.

Jess shrugged and nodded and leaned forward even further, watching the arch of his neck and the way his hands moved when he spoke. The stillness in his body when he finished. Of course Connie would know about him.

"He's pretty. Top or bottom?" Jess said, as if Connie were still her friend. As if Connie were still… So maybe the peace offering was going to work.

"Bottom, of course," Connie said, the smile in her whisper. "All kinds of red flags, plays real rough. Also some kind of genius. Just for you, Jessica. A love token."

Jess knew without turning to look that Connie was half laughing at Jess when she spoke. "Sure. Whatever. Does he know that he's all for me?" she murmured. "You set this up?"

"The real question," Connie drawled into her ear, suddenly so close Jess could almost feel tongue on her skin. "The real question, Jessica, is does he care? Because if you don't want him, I can guarantee he won't say no to me. You could watch."

Jess jerked away from her touch, hands balling up. The motion made her back ache. Bitch. Connie was… yeah. A love token. Jesus.

Sam's head was bent over his notes and his brow wrinkled in what could have been tight concentration or could have just been tiredness. When Jess looked closer there were dark circles under his eyes. Too much partying, probably, if Connie knew him. Probably.

"Whatever," Jess said softly, but she caught her lower lip between her teeth. It was pure impulse and something in the set of Sam's shoulders and the motions of his hands that made her say, "I want him. Keep your hands off."

It was the last time Jess sat next to Connie in class. The last class they ever shared.

\

Sam's eyes snap open. "Jess?" he says, and his voice comes out low and sharp. Connie. Constance Jenkins. He probably should have guessed.

Right now he can't even care, because it's Jess. She's here, and she's Jess. Jess. He's seen so many spirits, dead and broken, dull eyed as wax dolls or trapped in an animal frenzy, but none of them have been his.

He doesn't want to see that in her eyes, the expression those ghosts wear. But, she's not like them, Jess is here because he asked her, called for her and it's Samhain so she can hear him call. It's not because she's broken and can't let go.

He takes a shaky breath and looks at her, really looks at her, and there she is. Jess, she's just Jess. She's smiling and there's light glowing over her pale hair.

"Well. Now I know why you always hated Halloween," she murmurs, and she doesn't sound angry or broken or any of that. Just a little tired and rueful, like she's overslept when she was supposed to be in class. Just Jess.

"Yeah," Sam whispers, even though there's no one to hear it if he screams instead. "I'm sorry about that. I'm really sorry."

"I know you are. I also know that's not why you called me here. Not just to say that," she says.

Sam swallows and shakes his head, but Jess just shrugs and the glow of her fades a little until she looks almost like a person. Almost living, except for the way that the rain that's sliding down Sam's skin doesn't touch her.

She plops down on the ground next to him, dry and immaculate and slides her hands over his wrists, holding on hard. Sam shivers and smiles back at her. The touch of her there, even now, like this, it's better than he's felt in a long time. "You're not wearing the wrist cuffs I gave you anymore," she whispers. "But that doesn't mean you're not mine. You could have called me here to apologize or not. I'd still come."

"No. I don't know, I just. I wouldn't… I mean, you're… I wouldn't disturb you just for that," he says urgently, so that she knows for sure. "Not just for me." Sam's not this selfish, he's not. It doesn't change the fact that he's done this, he's woken her up, bothered her, called up the dead even though he knows better than anyone how wrong it is. He's done this to her, to Jess. There's no excuse, not missing her, not hurting, not the ache of the curse in his bones, nothing good enough to make up for the fact that she died because of him and now he's had the nerve to call her up again.

"I know. I know you have a good reason." The gentle grip on his wrists doesn't ease and she says, "Come on, focus, Sam, tell me what you need," just like she did when he was caught up in his head and she was helping him out of it and through it… like when she was alive.

He nods. It's fair enough. The sooner she can help him, the sooner she can go rest. That's the only good thing about this, that she gets to rest. "My brother Dean and I," he begins softly, not knowing how much she knows. How much she cares. "We hunt things… evil things."

"Yeah, I figured," Jess says and her thumbs stroke over the insides of his wrists. "Like the thing that killed me, right?"

Sam's mouth twists. "Especially like that."

Jess' eyes gleam, like she's teary. One of her hands slides off his wrist and up, pressing against his mouth. Sam's lips part involuntarily but she doesn't slide inside, just traces over them like she can see the invisible marks on him. "Like whatever did that to you," she says and he knows that she can see.

Sam's gut aches, but he can't look away. That-- he'd never thought about her seeing that, not what it would mean for Jess to know. His own pathetic little curse. She can't help him with it now, even if she still wants to. Even if getting her killed doesn't mean he's probably forfeited any right to be helped.

"That's not important anymore," he says, his voice sliding around her fingertips where they're still pressed to his mouth. She shakes her head, but he keeps right on talking. "There's something going on, Jess. Something evil. I think. I think it has to do with what happened. You know, when Connie Jenkins was murdered."

Jess stops whatever she was saying and pales a little. She never looked right when that woman's name was passed around, never was okay with it and even now it makes Sam's teeth grit. But she just finally just shakes her head again. Her hands drop into her lap and her head bows, hair sliding down to cover her eyes.

"She was a witch," she says. "I never thought she really was until too late, thought she was just fucking around and watched too many movies, but I bet you knew all along, right? What she was."

Sam blinks. "I didn't know you ever knew." And then Jess touches him and he… he remembers. "That it was for real, things like witches."

"I should have known all along, really. I think I knew too much," she whispers. She mouths the name. Connie. Sam doesn't even feel bad for being glad that Connie's dead.

\

When Jess was eighteen she spent more time in Connie's room than her own. Connie had a single with a mattress spread out on the floor and no room for much else. She kept herbs and cloth in a large wooden box nestled right next to her pillow. On sunny mornings Jess would lay on her stomach, bare arms hanging of the mattress and palms on the floor, half watching Connie grind and mix them with a mortar and pestle and hum to herself in some language Jess didn't know.

Jess only asked about it the first morning she slept over, when she was still sleepy hazy, body warm and heavy with sex. The bruises on her arms and thighs tingled from the things Connie had done to her. She propped herself up on her elbow, letting the sheet slide down her bare breast and gave Connie a wide-open sleepy smile. "Whatchya doing with that?" she'd asked softly, like a little girl.

Connie had looked up at her and smiled, all teeth, her eyes a vivid green in the morning light. "It's magic. S'making you mine," she said, with easy charm, like she was joking around. She dumped the herbal mixture onto a black cloth and tied it off with black thread before putting it in the pocket of Jess' jeans right where they lay crumbled on the floor.

Jess had blinked and rubbed her eyes. "Thought you did that last night?" she mumbled, still smiling. Magic. Whatever.

"Yeah. Well, a little extra can't hurt," Connie said. She leaned down and kissed Jess on the mouth and her breath smelled like rose petals, like no one's should this early in the morning. But that was just Connie.

"Liar," Jess said and Connie laughed at her and kissed her again. "Fine, don't tell me." Jess hadn't asked again. There were just things you couldn't ask Connie and Jess had known that almost from the beginning.

The first time she'd spent the night in Sam's dorm room instead of at her place he'd bitten his lower lip and given her a look she couldn't really understand, other than it hurt to see.

"I don't usually--" he began and then stopped, shaking his head. "Never mind."

"You don't usually what?" she'd asked carefully, because just like she'd known that sometimes you had to ignore Connie for your own mental stability, she was figuring out you couldn't ignore Sam, for his.

"I don't usually have people over where I sleep. To, you know." He gave a crooked half smile and hunched his shoulders. "Have sex. I don't…" Stuffed his thumbs in his pocket, as if to make himself small, as if that were possible. Jess' stomach twisted and she wondered again how Connie knew him, if Connie was responsible for any of the hurt in him. The truth was she didn't want to know.

"So it's kind of a mess here, you know?" he continued, without looking at her.

Actually, the room looked almost bare, other than the stacks of books on the shelves that spilled out and were lined up against the wall. Anything but messy, more like painfully neat.

But Jess hadn't told him she was thinking that, just nodded and tried not to let it show, that it bothered her. "We don't have to have sex," she said, trying to keep her tone as neutral as she could. "If you don't want to break your own rules."

Sam stared at her and just shook his head. "Yes, we do," he blurted out and then stopped, like he couldn't believe he'd just said that out loud. "I mean. Not if you don't want to? But I would… I mean. We should."

Jess said nothing. She just slid her hand into his pocket next to his and threaded their fingers together. Whispered, "Shhh," into his ear like he was a very young child and then led him to his own bed by the hand.

She was rough until he stopped shaking and then she was gentle until he was loose and pliant and sleepy enough that she could cover his eyes with her palm and rock him in her arms.

It wasn't until the morning when she woke up first that she realized he slept with a sheathed knife under his pillow. That his fingers curled around the hilt in his sleep like it was a child's toy, a teddy bear. Jess didn't know, she really didn't know what to do with that and maybe she should have been scared, but she really wasn't.

She didn't know why it made her cry instead of be afraid. All Jess knew was that when woke Sam up with her crying he'd rubbed his thumbs against her cheeks and asked her what was wrong in a soft, confused voice, gentler than anything she'd ever heard. She didn't tell him what she'd seen. It wasn't like it was actually the knife that had made her cry.

"We'll fix it," she'd whispered to him. "Everything. It'll be better, it will."

He just stared at her for a moment and then gave a solid half-smile. "Jesus, Jess. You're such an optimist, it's scary," he said. Sam smiled, but she knew he didn't believe for a second that it would be okay.

He had no reason to believe her. Too many mornings started too early, with sickly early sunlight turning the world pink and gray. Too many times that Jess woke up with Sam's body beside hers, so damned stiff and still, like he was afraid to wake her and sweat soaked. Sam's lips pinched too tight so that Jess had to put her hand on his elbow, loose and light, holding him down because otherwise he'd stop being rigid in his sleep and start thrashing.

If she'd been anyone else, if he hadn't recognized her scent, he might have brained her for touching before he was all the way awake. That was one of the things she'd learned right off about Sam, even before she'd learned about the knife. He could do violence.

\

"You thought that? I wouldn't have," Sam says in the thin light of the graveyard. "I've never killed anyone for touching me yet." His mouth twists and he doesn't say anything else for a moment.

"Well, maybe you should, if they deserve it," Jess mutters. "Or maybe someone should do it for you. But… that's not why I'm here, is it." She breathes out loudly. Like breathing is still necessary. "But you want to know about something else, right?"

"Yeah," Sam admits. "Yeah. The murders. We should really… that. We should focus on that."

Jess nods. "That's why you called me here." But she reaches out and rests her hands on Sam's shoulders, draws him down and down, until he's resting in her too solid embrace. Sam goes without protesting and when she holds him like that he lets himself relax. He can't smell her but he can feel her.

She's here, Jess is here.

 

\

 

"Sam," Jess whispered on the mornings she woke Sam out of a nightmare. On this particular morning where she watched him balance so precariously between asleep and awake. "Sam. Wake up, you're dreaming."

He nodded, as if he were too breathless to speak, as if he'd been running and let his head fall back against the pillow with a soft plopping sound. The loose strands of his hair felt soft against Jess' cheeks when she bent her head next to his. "I'm awake," he said, voice still so sleep hoarse that he sounded anything but. "It's cool."

She sighed and rubbed her hand over his forehead, like she was the mom on a television commercial and he was a little kid with a fever. She could see the way Sam almost smiled despite the nightmare and that made her smile too. "What did you dream about?" she asked softly. Another part of the ritual. The answer was always the same.

Sam shrugged and let his head loll so that he was pressed to her shoulder. "I don't remember," he said, like he always said. "Guess I freaked you out, huh? I'm sorry."  
She closed her eyes and pressed her palm against his cheek. "Don't apologize, just go back to sleep, Sam," she said, sharp but not ungentle. "It's early."

He smiled faintly and pressed himself closer to her. His skin felt warm under the blankets, pleasant were her feet pressed up against his thighs. "Is that an order?" he murmured.

Jess laughed at that, the terrible gentleness in her touch easing to something more normal. She could almost feel Sam relax again, could feel herself relaxing, the high wire act of pretending not to feel the driving fear for Sam easing into something more bearable. "If it will make you shut up and sleep it is. Kessler's killer mid-term's tomorrow and I need my rest."

"Your fault for taking inorganic chemistry," Sam mumbled, before yawning heavily. "Classes for nerds, freaks and lunatics, right?" By the time Jess whacked him over the head with a pillow he was relaxed enough to sleep when he closed his eyes.

Jess lay her head next to his and listened to him breathe. Sometimes, when he screamed in his sleep, she was mostly just afraid of herself and the things she wanted to do to whoever put those nightmares in his head.

It was fucked up. Wanting to kill the world for your boyfriend. She wished there was someone she could tell, someone who would understand that, but Connie would just laugh, had just laughed when Jess had said anything about Sam and said, "waste of your time, Jess. All that energy for a fuck. That's not why I gave him to you. Just push him off and send him to a shrink."

"He wasn't yours to give," Jess had said and looked away, wondering why she bothered. Never worth it. It was never worth it anymore with Connie. Maybe it never had been. Jess fell asleep thinking that, that maybe the only good thing to come from Connie were some hazy memories and an introduction to Sam Winchester. It made everything so much worse the next day, thinking that.

When Jess woke up, really woke up the next morning, Sam was sitting cross-legged on the bed, staring at a bundle of cloth and herbs in the palm of his hand. His eyes were wide and white and he didn't seem to see her at all until he looked up.

"Did you put this under your pillow?" he asked, with a note in his voice she'd never heard before.

"Wait. What?" Jess leaned over his shoulder to get a better look. It smelled strongly of smoke and something sickly sweet and just getting her nose close was enough to make her back off, coughing and gagging into her hand. She had no idea how anyone could sleep with something like that anywhere near them, even though she must have if Sam had found it under her pillow. Must have the beginnings of a head cold.

Sam barely seemed to notice the stink. He just prodded it with a fingertip, like it might bite him. "This thing's a nasty son of a bitch," he muttered.

It was weird. The bundle… she hadn't even seen anything that looked like that in a while, she realized. Not since she'd been with Connie.

"What is that?" Jess stared at it a little harder, because she should have recognized that before. The markings on the cloth and the cloying scent. Then again, it was early, and it had been months since she looked at it last. "Wait. I remember that. That actually is mine. Connie made it for me. You know, back when she thought she was a witch or something."

Which still didn't explain how it had gotten under Jess' pillow. She didn't remember putting it there. Last she knew it was safely tucked away behind her socks in the top drawer of the dresser.

Sam blinked and his expression went hard. "No. I didn't know. Was she over here recently?"

"No," Jess said softly. Connie hadn't been over since after the first month after Sam moved in. Sam had never said anything, but Jess preferred it that way. "Why, what's wrong with it? I mean, it's just herbs. She used to pretend they were love spells and stuff."

Sam made a sour face. "Oh yeah, cause love spells are a nice thing to do. You say Connie gave it to you?"

Jess shrugged. "Yeah. Weird, huh? Years ago. I just don't know how it got there. I must have dropped it in with the laundry by mistake and got it caught in the pillowcase or something." Sam just gave an unreadable glare and Jess found herself saying, "Doesn't matter now, it smells like it's gone rancid. Gross. I'll toss it."

"Burning would work better," Sam muttered, shaking his head. "I can't believe someone gave you this. I can't believe she gave this to you."

Sam was obviously angry, but the whole thing was actually kind of silly if you thought about it. Really, Jess couldn't help but grin at the expression on his face. So very much like a put upon little boy. "Jesus, you're kind of superstitious, Sam," she teased lightly. "I mean, bad enough that Connie used to think she was a witch, but you're acting like you believe her."

"Whatever," he muttered, not meeting her eyes. "Go. Get dressed, eat. You have an exam. I'll take care of this."

Jess laughed out loud and ruffled his hair, and then went. She didn't think about it again, not until much later.

\

"Shit," Sam says and squeezes his eyes shut against Jess' shoulder. "That must have been it. When I broke her charm. All this time and it was me that started it. Fuck."

"What?" Jess asks softly, as if she's taken aback by the sheer vehemence of his tone. She's petting his hair with slow, soothing strokes and he tries to relax for her.

"It wasn't a love spell, Jess," he says and lifts his head out of the shelter of her shoulder. She's dead. The dead shouldn't be asked to shelter anyone, it isn't right. None of this is right. "I thought it was, so I just broke it. A broken spell rebounds against the caster."

When Sam looks up, Jess is staring at him, clearly confused. "Okay. Not a love spell. What then?"

"She maybe hated you a little, didn't she?" he says instead of answering her. Maybe that's answer enough. "She wanted to hurt you, to kill you, so when I broke her spell it rebounded. It…"

"It killed her," Jess finishes for him.


	2. Chapter 2

By the time Jess got out of the exam, a fog had rolled in. Thick, almost smoky, like there might be a fire in the hills, even though Jess hadn't heard about one on the news. She had to rub her eyes a few times because of the sting of it on the way down to her volunteer gig.

The irony was that volunteering at the domestic violence center had been Connie's idea to begin with and she'd been the one to push and push Jess into getting involved. Like she'd never associated it with anything she did, not once. It was weird, but Jess kept right on doing it, like clockwork, after having had to get dragged in there the first time. It felt okay, being there. Useful.

She kept going even when it meant she'd have to keep seeing Connie, keep seeing the expression on her face, the curl of her lips. The sly insinuations about Jess, about Sam, about every damned thing.

Jess kept coming in spite of Connie, or maybe because of her. No more classes together and Jess had stopped going to scene parties because of Sam, a little and because of herself more. If not here she'd never see Connie at all.

So, she went every Tuesday, and Connie was there and they didn't talk. Or Connie talked, but Jess didn't, she just never stopped going.

Except that Tuesday she almost didn't go, and later she wished so hard that she hadn't, had never even gotten out of bed. She was late and dragged out as hell from her chem mid-term and the fog didn't help. She was still rubbing her eyes when she spotted the ambulance parked right up in front with a swarm of EMTs hanging around. That was when she forgot everything and started running.

"What's going on?" she asked the first person she knew, Jimmy, a quiet short boy who did intake because he never freaked anyone out.

He just shook his head. "She just went off, Jess. She just… Jesus." He stopped, took a gulping breath and launched into a hushed story about a victim, or a girl who'd claimed to be one, coming in looking like she'd gotten the wrong end of someone's fist. Except she had a knife and started to use it.

Jess just stared at the ambulance. "Was anyone—"

"Connie and also John Abrahams in accounting," he whispered. She barely knew Abrahams, but Connie… Jesus. Jess' jaw clenched. "I think. I mean, I think he's okay. She… But, oh, oh, fuck, Jess. She didn't look like… she was so damned strong."

Jess nodded and patted Jimmy's shoulder as if that was going to reassure him. He just shrugged and stumbled on closer, just in time to watch a small little blonde girl, five-foot nothing, with a bruised face, being pushed into a police car. Jess found herself staring again, because Abrahams was a big guy and Connie had played lacrosse, Connie was… Connie had no problems hitting, hurting lashing out. That girl should have been no match for Connie, that girl that Jimmy had pointed to. The girl who was being hustled and crowded by the cops and she was so tiny… oh, hell. It made no sense.

Nothing made any sense right then.

Jess was still staring at the little slip of girl when she felt a hand on her back that almost made her shriek. "Jess," a soft familiar voice calmed her before she had a chance to startle.

It was Sam; large and solidly present in a way it was so easy to forget he could be. "This fog and I-- I heard something happened down here on my way to class," he said softly, keeping one steady arm around her shoulder. She breathed out. "But you're okay, huh? I'm glad you're okay."

"I'm fine, it wasn't me, I wasn't even here. Kessler's fucking mid-term," Jess muttered, and Sam just nodded. "It was… Connie, it was…" Jess knew Sam knew Connie, but other than some insinuations she had no idea how well. He never talked about her, never. Jess couldn't imagine knowing her well and never talking about her at all, but it was hard to tell with Sam.

But Sam just kept nodding along, looking worried, focused on Jess. "I hear you. Connie. That's too bad. I—I didn't think… I just wanted to make sure you were okay." He finally looked past her shoulder to the chaos of campus police and EMTs and scared looking students around them like he was only now noticing it. "What happened? I heard someone lost it with a gun."

Jess shook her head. "No. No, it was a knife. Fuck, it sounds like it was really weird, though. This little bitty girl, she shouldn't have had the upper body strength, you know? I can't. Let's go find Connie." That was all she could think about. Find Connie and Connie would be pissed at that girl for doing this, at Jess for not having been there. At Jess for leaving, for ignoring, for hating her.

Except the only thing was, Jess didn't hate her now, not right now. She just wanted to see her, to see the way Connie would yell about this. Or laugh, or tell Jess she was being a sad worrywart and if this was what it took to get Jess' attention she'd have done it months ago. Jess just had to find her first, so she could do that.

"I don't think we can get in there," Sam said softly, staring at the lines of police tape and the milling, babbling crowd. "I mean… we could, but she's probably got EMTs with her."

"We'd be underfoot," Jess agreed in a whisper, and then found herself staring at the girl again. The girl who'd done this, made this happen.

Sam followed her gaze to the car, pulling out of the lot with the small girl huddled in the back. Jess shuddered when it felt like her gaze fixed right on them. She had weird zoned out looking eyes and she was mouthing something, her face pressed right up to the glass. "That's her?" Sam asked softly, and then nodded, not even waiting for Jess' reply. "Yeah. Her."

The girl kept mouthing a stream of words Jess couldn't hear. Then she smiled. Bright, showing teeth. Jess felt Sam go completely stiff behind her, every muscle tensing. Her own body tensed in sympathy.

"It's like she's looking right at us," Jess whispered. "God, she's completely nuts, isn't she?"

"Yeah," Sam said, almost absently. Jess turned to look over her shoulder at him but his eyes were right on the girl as the police car finally pulled out of the crowded lot and into the street, vanishing in a hail of sirens. The girl kept saying whatever she was saying, mouthing words into glass and Sam stood there like he was listening.

"Sam?" Jess asked softly, when Sam just stayed still, like he had no intention of moving.

"Angry, angry, angry. Someone's wrath," he muttered. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Jess blinked, but Sam still wasn't looking at her. "What?"

He scratched the back of his neck and stared off into the crowd like he was trying to figure out a really tough test question. "I think that's what she was saying. That's not… I don't know what that means. Someone's overwhelming wrath. It can't be…"

Jess opened her mouth and then shut it. She wondered if it was the pounding in her head or if Sam just wasn't making any sense.

She had probably been about to say something, but then they carried out a body covered in a white sheet on a stretcher and talking was the last thing on her mind. One slender wrist hung out and Jess recognized Connie Jenkin's bracelet dangling off it. The bracelet Jess had given her on her last birthday, when it was good between them, when Jess had thought that was it, her and Connie. That it was always going to be the two of them. Connie was wearing that bracelet and it shone silver in the sunlight, a little charm in the shape of a key hanging off it.

Her mouth tightened and she swayed back against Sam's broad shoulder, her fists clenched. "Connie. Fuck. Oh, Jesus, fuck, she hates it when people cover her face. She hates it, Sam."

Sam didn't say anything just shrugged and held on to her. Then stuffed his hands into his pockets when Jess pulled away. It was a strangely helpless gesture. For some reason couldn't stop seeing it, Connie's birthday.

Connie's twentieth birthday had come on a Monday morning and they'd been happy then. Jess had been happy then. The light was pale, rose delicate and they'd both skipped their morning classes to sleep in. Jess woke up first and pressed a package wrapped in blue tissue paper into Connie's hand, closing Connie's lax fingers around it and kissing her elbow until she opened her eyes.

"Happy birthday," she'd whispered and Connie had smiled at her, dazzling as a spotlight.

"Jess," she'd said. "Jessica."

They took Connie's near extinct Volvo down to San Francisco in the afternoon, holding hands and oblivious to any looks that earned them. The day was dazzling and Jess felt like spinning to make her skirt swirl.

She almost crashed into a beggar woman without seeing her, barely caught herself in time. Connie's hand on her elbow steadied her and the strange woman stared out from under lank strands of hair.

"Sorry," Jess whispered and moved to pick her way past. "I'm sorry."

She gasped when the woman caught her wrist, hard, and breathed the smell of vodka and sour air into her face. "You. Walking all up next to that woman. You think she loves you? A bruja like that? She don't love no one."

"Excuse me," Jess said stiffly, tugging her wrist free. She didn't look at Connie.

Connie, though, Connie wouldn't be overlooked. "What the fuck is your problem?" she hissed and gave the woman and a shove, pushing her out of Jess' path. "Go find a shelter or a drunk tank, Jesus."

"Jesus don't care nothing for your kind, bruja," the woman said and laughed, high pitched enough to make Jess wince. "I see you even if that poor girl don't."

"You fucking bitch--" Connie said, but Jess put her hand on Connie's shoulder. She winced at the tension she felt in the muscle there. Any more wound up and Connie was going to start looking for something to hit. It was worse than being with a guy sometimes.

"Relax," she said soothingly, just wanting this to stop, for the day not to be ruined for something this dumb. "Come on, Connie, it's just a crazy homeless lady," she whispered, like the woman wasn't even there. "Come on."

Connie had shuddered under her grip and then nodded, finally letting Jess pull her down the street.

"You gonna regret everything about her!" the woman called after her, but Jess just stiffened her spine and kept walking. "You gonna regret closing your eyes and ears!"

It turned out it was true, though. Jess had and did regret everything. Everything. Which, actually Jess should have known all a-fucking-long. Not that she was bitter or anything.

"She hates it, Sam," Jess said, one last time.

She turned on her heels and started walking with Sam following her, not in her space, just walking one pace behind like a self appointed guard dog. They were half way back to their place before Jess even thought to wonder how the hell Sam had known what the psycho bitch, that murdering bitch, ranting through glass was saying.

She stopped walking as abruptly as she'd started. Sam stopped with her and he was still a pace behind her when she turned around to look. "I didn't know you could read lips," she muttered.

Sam just shrugged, like he wasn't going to answer. Jess reached out and grabbed him by the wrist, fingers tightening around the black strap of leather. Sam gave a vague almost smile. "I have a lot of useless talents, that's just one of them. I'm sorry about Connie, Jess."

Jess sighed and didn't say she was the wrong person to give sympathies to. It was too damned hard to explain. "Right. Okay, fine. Let's just go home, all right?"

Home found Sam jumping right into the oldest, mustiest book Jess had ever seen allowed outside of a library, still on the trail of whatever he was thinking about.

Watching Sam, Jess remembered Connie saying, 'He's all yours, baby, but take my advice. Don't go out with him, he's got so many red flags he could land airplanes. He'll just waste your time,' minutes before the first time she'd met Sam properly at someone's stupid fetish Halloween party.

They'd been watching him, Connie sticking too close to Jess and Jess not stopping her and not knowing why. Watching Sam pull a nasty scene in public like it was nothing, like it didn't even matter. Like he didn't matter.

'You're pretty sure of yourself,' Jess remembered saying. Remembered being angry, angry. At Connie, at those guys at the party, at Sam, for letting himself get used like he was nothing.

Connie laughed after saying that, her mouth painted red and flashing in the light. 'Maybe I should try him, bet I could make him cry real pretty.'

Jess had just stared her down and taken it as a dare. A throw down. It was easy too, taking Sam right out of the middle of the scene and the party and everything else, to her bed because she could. Because he let her, like it was nothing.

It was easy never going back after that, because Sam was so far from nothing it made Jess' chest ache. Easy to stay away from Connie, from everything they'd ever been together.

And now Connie was dead and Jess was here and so was Sam, curled up in Jess' overstuffed chair, head bent over a book. Here was Sam and Connie had a sheet over her face. And it was easy.

Sam just hummed to himself and thumbed through the book, like he was oblivious, like he had no idea that Jess' head was spinning and the axis of the world was crazy and out of control. "I know what you're going to say, but I can't stop thinking about it. What that girl said…" Sam muttered. It looked ridiculously heavy, the book.

Jess' thoughts were wild. Sometimes she wondered where Sam even got those books. All she knew was it made her want to stay far away from the history department if that was the crack they were selling. All she knew was that this really wasn't the time. All she knew was that Connie loved old books too, caressed their seams and pressed her cheek against crinkled yellow paper. That was the only thing they had in common, that and green-blue eyes that could go flat as wallpaper if you said the wrong thing.

Jess stared and gave an incredulous laugh and played along without knowing why she was bothering. "I don't think anyone is going to stop thinking about, Sam. Fuck." Connie was dead; there had been blood. Connie and blood, the taste of blood, the smell of it. That stupid, stupid dangling bracelet.

Sam nodded without pulling his nose out of the book, without looking up at Jess. Like he didn't see the blood at all, like he just saw pages. Jess pushed her hand against her mouth to stifle a sob.

That got his attention. Sam blinked and looked up at her. "Look, it'll be okay," he said, gentle, but detached. Like this was debate club and he was making the winning speech. "Don't cry, don't worry… it'll be okay."

"I wasn't worried," Jess said. "Not about... not about thinking about it. I was saving it for the knife wielding psychos. Worrying." She shook her head.

Sam frowned and put the book down, sliding up to sit down by her, put an arm around her shoulder. Jess shrugged him off and inched away.

"Jesus, Sam, just go to bed. We have to—I don't know. Sympathy for the family, right? I don't even really know them. I've never—" she bit her lip and shook her head. Sam caught her hands in his before she realized they were shaking. "I've never known anyone who was murdered before," she finished softly.

"Yeah," Sam whispered. He put the book down carefully, almost tenderly, before turning the full weight of his attention back on her. "It sucks."

Jess shivered in the warm, dry air. So easy to forget how big Sam's hands were. "Have you ever known someone who was murdered before?"

"I didn't really know Connie very well. I don't think she liked me," Sam said, like that was an answer. In a weird way, it was. Sam hadn't known her. Everything Connie had said about him and here was Sam just saying he didn't really know her, like she didn't matter. Jess didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. "But you. I know she was special to you. Come on, I'll take you to bed."

"Special. Right." Jess took a slow, steadying breath. "Real special." Something else. She needed something, needed to think about anything but Connie being carried out under a sheet. The thing was, Jess knew what Connie would tell her to do to distract herself if Connie could still tell her things.

She took another breath and twisted her hands in Sam's so that she was the one doing the gripping. Her fingers slid into the narrow space between the leather around his wrists and his skin, forcefully enough that it had to hurt.

He let her, his eyes growing greener and wider as he jerked toward her. Those eyes, the same shade as Connie's had been. The same color, but different in every other way and not just that Connie was dead, but Sam… Sam was here. Her breath tore at the sight of him.

"You have beautiful eyes. I want to fuck you," Jess blurted out.

"Okay," Sam said without even stopping to think about it. Just like that. "Of course." His gaze dropped, sweet and slow and some of the tension in his hands eased. He felt so strong under her hands. Hers. She wanted him to feel like hers. She wanted to see him yield so that she could feel it, feel the life pulsing under his skin. "Now?"

Jess jerked at his wrists. "Yes," she said, sharper then she'd meant to. "Now. I need to—it hurts—" she closed her eyes and saw Connie's limp, dangling wrist, hanging off the stretcher. Saw the faint white lines of scars up and down Sam's skin, scars she hadn't put there. Old, old scars on someone too young for them. She felt dizzy, like she was falling. Always had to be so fucking careful with Sam, always. "No, never mind. Vanilla is better. Let's just fuck."

When she opened her eyes, Sam was smiling, so sharp but so very earnest in spite of that. "Jess," he said. "Ma'am. I get it, it's okay."

"I don't think I'm in control of myself," she whispered, like it was an apology.

"No one could blame you for that. It's okay, though, I think we want it the same." Sam's smile was bright, lucid, like he was in control were she wasn't. "I'm sorry about Connie, Jess," he added in a softer tone. Jess shuddered. He didn't know. If he knew he wouldn't be sorry.

"Me too. But no. No you don't use your safewords, you never—I-I can't do that now," Jess said. Connie would do it. She looked into green, green eyes, so much like her eyes, except they were so damned steady and thought about how Sam always looked at her like that, how he just let things happen to him. "Can't you just say stop if you wanna stop? That's it. Can't you? So I won't hurt you."

"You won't hurt me," Sam said, like the very idea surprised him. "Of course you won't, Jess." Jess shook her head, but Sam just slid down off the couch and to his knees in front of her without ever loosening the grip of her hands on his wrists. "You can trust me," he murmured. "This time, you can." Like he was speaking to all the other times when she knew, knew, could see it in his expression how simple and easy it would be too push him too far without him ever saying a word. To turn into Connie, to turn into someone else.

Jess jerked toward him, staring and wanting so much to just take what he was offering. It almost hurt to catch herself before she got too close. He felt hot and solid and like he could take anything at all.

"I don't believe you," she whispered. He flinched, but didn't say anything further to deny she was right, just slumped forward a little, as good as an admission. She shook her head. It was going to be okay. If she could just relax it would be okay. If she could stop thinking. "Not right now. Let's… let's not stay here, let's just go out."

Sam stared at her, wide eyed and suddenly hunched over, on his knees. His skin was flushed and Jess didn't want to think about why. "Where do you want to go?"

Jess bit her lower lip and told him, even though she knew he wouldn't like it. He just nodded, but she'd known he would. "You don't have to come," she said, but he just shrugged and put his boots on like it didn't matter and walked two steps behind her, like he was her bodyguard or her slave. Like he wasn't sure of the difference.

It felt like a long drive down to San Francisco even if it wasn't. Sam was quiet, curled up in the passenger seat, and Jess' hands clutched at the wheel like the car might jump off the road like a dog off a leash if she let it.

She knew exactly where she was going, where everyone was going to be, so she hardly even had to think about the drive, the road the traffic. Then they were there and Jess paid the parking attendant and stepped out into the night, Sam one step behind her until they reached an unmarked door in an alley.

Jess hadn't been out here in so long, not really, not since she'd been with Sam. She hadn't wanted to. Sam didn't seem to care and she didn't need it, not like she did now with the misery and confusion thrumming through her. She needed it now, but she hung back anyway, feeling the need and staring at the door. Behind it there'd be a private party, invitation only, but they knew her and she'd be welcome.

She still hesitated before walking in, seeing Connie's wrist behind her eyelids every time she blinked before.

"So, we doing this?" Sam asked softly from behind her and Jess realized she'd been staring at the door for maybe too long.

Jess shuddered and had to rub her thumb over the soft leather cuffs around Sam's wrists, as if to remind herself he was hers. That she hadn't fucked things up yet. He looked down at her when she did it and almost smiled, as if he were the one being reassured by the touch instead of the other way around.

"We don't have to do this. You can still back out. You don't have to come with me," Jess said carefully, watching his face. "It's not a dare or a game."

"You're upset, you need to—something," Sam said and gave a little shrug, shoulders caving in on themselves. "I want to give you something, for once, I want to. It's fine, Jess. It's no big deal."

"You said you weren't that into the scene," Jess said softly. "You said that a lot."

Sam just shrugged. "I said I didn't know much about it. Too many lectures and stupid questions." He made a sour face and rolled his eyes, then struck a school teacher tone, like he was imitating someone else, "hey kid, tell me about your limits. Aren't you a little young to be here? What's your safe word?"

Jess caught her lower lip between her teeth and didn't say anything for a moment because she was starting to figure out there were some things you couldn't say to Sam. Still… "It's a little intense, I know. It's just mostly people being sure they're not gonna hurt you, though."

"Yeah, whatever," Sam muttered and Jess felt suddenly sorry for those people, whoever they'd been. Those people who'd tried to make Sam talk. "It's obnoxious. You didn't do that," he rolled his eyes and kept right on going and Jess let him go on, uninterrupted. " 'Are you a top or a bottom? Are you really sure you're a bottom? Well have you tried topping? ' " Then he sighed and just stared at her and she didn't know what else to say, not really.

Instead she took a deep breath, turned and opened the door and said her name to the doorman, her hand still firmly caught around Sam's wrist.

She didn't have a chance to think of anything else before they were inside, but she didn't have to. Someone let out a squeal and she had Dee Harper running right at her and hugging her hard and breathless and everything else receded into the background.

Jess shivered and let herself collapse into Dee's arms. She and Dee had never been close the way she had been with... with Connie, but Dee was one of the first friends she'd made when she started going out around here and that counted for something, especially now.

"I heard," Dee whispered, stroking Jess' back gently. "Everybody heard. Jesus, it's unbelievable."

"I know," Jess said back, resting her forehead on Dee's shoulder, just for a moment. "I can't even. She—" she bit her lip. She really couldn't. She could barely process it right now; she just had to stop thinking about it somehow before it drove her any crazier. She looked back over her shoulder and there was Sam, head down and quiet, waiting for her. She sighed and straightened up. No going crazy with Sam here.

"This is my... this is Sam," she said softly. Her Sam. It still gave her a rush of crazy pride, even now, like this.

Dee raised an eyebrow and took a step back, as if assessing him. "Huh," Dee said, the earlier sympathy turned to something like a leer. "Connie said… never mind. Never mind. So, this why we haven't seen you around much anymore?"

Jess just sighed. Sam raised his head, offering one of his smallest, barest smiles of total disinterest. Jess suppressed a smile of her own, if only because sometimes it felt like she was almost figuring him out, what Sam was saying when he didn't speak. Like Sam was a puzzle that actually had a solution.

Sam turned from Dee to Jess, giving Jess a genuine smile and stepping back to her side. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, and then seemed to decide against it and shrugged instead.

"Pretty," Dee murmured easily. She laughed and then turned and nodded to a girl hovering a few paces behind her, wearing a dress that seemed to consist of leather straps and not much else, big blue eyes that were cast down. Probably another one of Dee's little humiliation sluts. Dee had a thing for them and they crawled all over her because she gave them what they were looking for. "That pathetic whore is Allie," Dee said, confirming Jess' thought. Whatever worked for people.

"Hello, mistress," the girl, Allie, whispered.

Dee just laughed again and gave Allie a little push. "Go to the bar and get us something to drink. Lots of somethings." Dee's smile faded and she shook her head. "We gotta get trashed, right? For Connie."

Jess nodded quickly, because that was really the goal of the night. Get trashed. Shut down. Shut up. Just stop.

"Want me to help her carry the drinks?" Sam asked, softly from beside her. She sighed and nodded without looking back at him. He'd probably be making a disapproving face or something, but he wouldn't stop her. Not tonight.

She settled on a bar stool across from her friend, retelling the story of this morning while Dee nodded along and hissed out her own outrage. "Little murdering bitch," Dee muttered. "I don't know why you bother with them. Domestic violence or whatever. The little bitches want it, don't they?"

It was like someone's racist grandmother. Embarrassing. Jess winced and was going to say something, but then Sam was back behind her with two beers in his hands. "Thanks," Jess said and smiled up at him and grabbed one, like this was just one of their regular college bars. "Come and sit?" She nodded at the stool next to her. Allie was on the other side, by Dee, kneeling at her feet and offering a tray of colorful shots.

"Sure it's cool for me to sit there?" Sam asked. His gaze flickered to Allie on her knees and then back to Jess, but he moved toward the stool and settled down on it without really waiting for her answer. It felt warm, almost normal, to have him sitting there with her, steady at her back and sipping at his own beer. Jess breathed out. Relaxed and turned her attention back to Dee.

Dee knocked back a shot of something that looked blue and then sniggered, like it was suddenly okay to think about someone that wasn't Connie the drunker she got.

"You're getting awfully easy on the subs. You used to be much tougher on them, I remember." She looked past Jess and leered at Sam in a way that made Jess angle herself in front of him, as if she were blocking him with her body.

Sam just looked at Jess, raised an eyebrow and said, "Yeah?"

Jess rolled her eyes and shrugged, "Don't listen to everything you hear, Sam."

Dee just laughed and shook her head. "And you and Connie, I remember—" then she stopped and turned red, the circle around them gone momentarily silent. "Sorry, Jess," Dee finished hastily. "I didn't mean."

"Yeah. It's okay," Jess said. It wasn't like she could expect no one to ever talk about, especially not here where people knew. Knew about Connie. Her and Connie, and the feel of Connie's stiff, thin fingers. She grabbed one of the shots off of Dee's tray, tipped it back and slammed it hard, and then chased it with some of the beer.

Then another, until she had Sam's hand on her arm before she could reach for a third, large and strong and distracting. He pulled her a little aside and she let him. Let him whisper in her ear. There was something new in his eyes that she couldn't place. Warm and ready.

"Hey, slow down a little," he whispered. Jess shook her head. Sam sighed and looked around and she could see him taking in the people around them. The ones who didn't know Connie, who were just drunk and fucking around like this was any other scene party.

"We could do something else. Would you like me on my knees?" he offered, and leaned forward so the words were just for her. "I would do it. For you. If you'd calm down." A glint of something in his green-blue eyes that she normally only saw in bed. Her head hurt and somehow she knew she wasn't being a good person, she wasn't, but…

Watching Sam, she could forget she was miserable. The shot was warm in her stomach, already buzzing in her head, and here was Sam. On his knees, eyes wide and soft. He was so damned gorgeous it made her breath catch. She reached down, cupping his cheek with her palm.

Sam was so different, so different from anyone or anything else here. He shrugged, all smooth muscle and steady, quiet, like he didn't have a clue how hard it was sometimes not to just take and take everything he gave, like he didn't even know how good he was.

"Whatever pleases you, Jess," he murmured, like he'd been listening to the people around him to find just the right words. He leaned into her hand, watchful, like he was following her touch. His mouth quirked. "Ma'am."

"You do," she said. She leaned down, cupped the back of his neck and kissed him, shivering at the way he opened up to it, pliant and warm. Easy. Whoever had trained him had done an amazing job. Sometimes she wasn't sure if that was something to thank that unknown someone for or to kill them for. If they'd been someone who helped Sam or if they'd been the one to break him. Her hand on Sam's neck tightened a little, until she felt him wince.

Somewhere in the background Jess could hear voices and glasses clinking. Somewhere in her head, she could hear Connie in the way Sam winced. "Not here," Jess said. Sam bit his lower lip and nodded slowly.

"Whatever you want, Jess," he said. "Just… just slow down, okay? Nix the alcohol poisoning."

"Okay," Jess agreed, because she couldn't argue. Too many thoughts, too much going on.

When they walked back over to the others, Dee was still laughing. She leaned over and put her arm around Jess like she'd never noticed Jess had gone and said, "Remember when Connie replaced the condoms in the jar with red balloons." And Jess did remember, of course she did, and she put her hand over her mouth, laughing in spite of herself.

Maybe coming here hadn't been such a bad idea.

Jess tried to relax, and it was easier now, the liquor warm in her guts, Sam lounging next to her, taking the drinks from her hand when they kept coming, letting her tangle her fingers in his hair. It felt casual and good, felt like it could work. Like there was space for her here, with Sam, even if they both had to be drunk to make it happen.

Talking helped. They talked about Connie and all her crazy. The time she broke the curve in orgo and they practically formed a lynch mob to get her. The sweet little red headed boy sub she'd leashed to the bar one night, and winked and said, "hey, free drinks on tap, people!" Connie and the way she laughed, like the world was ending.

Everything. Everything but Connie and her gray handled whip and how much she liked to see blood.

They talked and other people who knew her sidled up to the bar and it really was okay. Jess could almost breath through the blur of alcohol and warmth.

When it got weird it was because of Sam and how drunk, how stupid drunk everyone was, especially the people who hadn't known Connie. Not even something Sam did, just that he was there, next to her and beautiful. There was Jake, who wasn't a friend, who always, always chased after other people's boyfriends. He leaned up to Jess and said. "How about you, Jess, you up for sharing tonight? You should ask your boy. Maybe he wants to be shared."

Dee laughed and fumbled for a half empty glass. "Connie would have done it," she said and was met with wild laughter all around. "Connie would have loved it if someone did that for her funeral, right in front of her casket."

Hard to think about how true that was. Jess pressed her palm to her forehead and didn't smile. Instead, she looked down at Sam, really looked, and almost said no outright while everyone was still laughing and not really taking the idea seriously. Except Sam just looked back at her but he stayed soft and loose under her hand and didn't say anything. Waiting for her to decide. The no caught in Jess' throat, watching him waiting like that for her.

She knew he'd done it before, done groups, in public, all of it, so it couldn't exactly be a deal breaker. But the one time she'd actually seen him do it, he'd look so... so not into it. Spaced. So different from the slow, almost shy way he opened up to her sometimes.

"Get your own," she said, but she knew she'd thought about it too long, long enough that that it was obvious the idea appealed to her. If Sam wouldn't mind, if it wasn't exactly a group thing, if it was just him and her.

Dee just laughed a little louder, clearly toasted, gone, and Jess knew she was none too steady herself. "You act like his dick's made of honey," Dee murmured. "Why don't you just show us if he's as pretty down there as the rest of him?"

The image struck her, how it could be, if he wanted it like that... Sam, all tanned and golden, muscle everywhere, up on the bar. So pretty. Maybe cuffed, jeans around his ankles, vulnerable. She wondered what it would be like to make him come like that, if he would like it.

If he wouldn't mind. Jess looked down at him, stroked his hair and then bent her head to whisper. "Want to show them? It could be pretty hot," she said, gentle, so he'd know he could say no. "Just showing off. Just you and me." Maybe she was just a little too drunk and loose to remember he never had said no before.

Sam blinked, like he was coming out a daze and then shrugged. "It could," he conceded softly. He tilted his head up a little, angling his neck to press a warm kiss on the inside of her wrist. His mouth was wet and slow.

"See! He agrees," Jake said. Jess looked back at him, over Sam's shoulder. For a moment, between eyeblinks, she thought she could see Connie behind him, dressed in red leather and grinning.

"Do it," Connie whispered to her. "He wants it."

And a part of Jess wanted to make sure he really did, wanted to, but she was on a rush and he was so beautiful, he was Sam and she wanted him, wanted to show them all. Wanted Sam to want to show them too.

She couldn't help but grin at the way Sam's head jerked up at the clang of metal and glass when someone cleared the bar for him. He stared at her, big eyed, breathing suddenly ragged, and she looked down at him, grinning a little more when she saw the bulge in his jeans.

Jess stumbled to her feet, swaying as she stood. Drunker than she'd thought then. She giggled at herself, and then leaned down to give Sam a hand up. "Come on," she whispered, low and throaty. "Make me proud of you." Not that she already wasn't. He was so beautiful like this, eyes cast down, bulge in his jeans. He wanted to. Jess wanted to. She knew he wanted to.

She tapped her knuckle on the bar and waited for just a moment before he nodded, once and quickly and slid up to his feet, steady like he wasn't drunk at all. He scooted up on to the bar and back, spreading his legs without being asked. She smiled and stroked one of his thighs through his jeans, feeling the tightness of the muscle underneath.

"Here, props," Jake murmured from behind her and he slid a pair of soft cuffs into her hands. Jess grinned.

"Give me your wrists," she said to Sam, still smiling at him, steadier now. His eyes were dark in the dim bar light, unfathomable and his mouth was a tight line, like he was biting down on his lip.

Sam obeyed immediately, wrists out in front of him. Jess put the cuffs on with only a little fumbling, and then motioned for Jake to raise Sam's arms above his head. Jake had the longer arms, so he fastened the cuffs to the ceiling and Jess watched Sam, the shifting of his breathing, the way he closed his eyes.

Soft whispers of her friends around her, but there was too much sound, her head was too fuzzy and Jess could only really concentrate on one thing at time now. That one thing was going to be Sam. "I really, really, really," she whispered to him, and then stopped without completing the thought. He kept his eyes closed and she watched.

Watched and then reached out so that she could touch. Desperate to touch, to make him want it like she did, delicate, fingers finding the spots that made him gasp without any fumbling at all. Pressed her lips against his and tasted beer and spit.

"Lift your hips for me," she whispered. Sam obeyed, wordlessly, breath gone fast and choppy while she slid down his jeans and underwear, exposing skin to the cool air.  
"So beautiful," Jess said, brushing her lips against his ear and her hand over his dick. Hard and hot, wet at the tip. "You're so hard, so good. Wanna taste you."

She didn't wait, couldn't wait, just kissed her way down his skin, through the thin layer of his T-shirt. So obscene like this, wearing that, jeans and boxers around his ankles, trapped by his boots. Dirtier than if he'd been naked.

Jake whistled from the behind her, loud enough to break through to where her head was now. "Well he looks like honey, anyway," he said.

Jess just nodded, eyes only for Sam. "So good, Sammy," she whispered. She bent her head, letting the soft strands of hair slide over his thighs. Took the head of his dick into her mouth, slow and easy. Not honey at all, much dirtier than that. Tasted like salt, heavy tears. He shuddered at the touch, but his hips didn't jerk, too well trained for that.

"Amazing," she panted, between licks, words muffled. "You're so. You have to tell me who taught you." She was too drunk not to ask, for once, for once.

Sam's body twitched when she spoke, hard enough for her to feel the tremor of it. The hiss of his breath. Jess looked up from between his legs, but she couldn't really see him from that angle. Just the rise and fall of his chest, fast and jerky.

And then, "Everyone," Sam whispered, and Jess could hear the shakiness in his voice, shallow and thick, but she didn't want to hear it. Not now, not fucking now, when she could feel him like this. Feel his balls tightening under her hands while she slid her mouth over his cock, taking as much of it as she could.

She wanted to climb on top, pull up her skirt and just take it into her. Wanted to look him in the eyes, see the surrender. Something. Her beautiful boy. The impulse was enough and she let his dick go so that she could clamber up onto the bar, closer, face to face and eye to eye, flipping Dee the bird over her shoulder when the little bitch whistled at the sight.

"Everyone taught me," he said, almost too soft to hear. Pitched just for her, but he wasn't really looking toward her, his face was angled away. Then he laughed unsteadily. "Domina solvit conpeditos," he muttered, definitely not talking to her. It was like he wasn't even seeing her, like he was going to cry.

It was like a bucket of ice thrown at her face. Jess gasped, head snapping up, and he finally opened his eyes. "Come on, Sam, you—" And then she stopped, because she was dizzy, suddenly so dizzy and his face, the look on his face. Sam's face.

She was struck hard by the memory of the look on his face at that party when he'd taken on a group of guys. Detached, exhausted. He looked like that. Miserable. Miserable and the room was swaying and Jess had no clue, none of when that had happened. Her first impulse was to scream at him for not just saying something before it ever got this far, then it was to scream at herself, because, fuck it, Moore, you know better. It was her job to watch out for him.

Instead she took a deep, wrenching breath, like it could clear the alcoholic fog out of her head. Fuzzy. Shit. Shit. People were whispering. People were whispering and Sam was looking at her like that. "Show's over, fine," she hissed. "Gimme the key, Jake, playtime's over."

Her hands were less than steady on the cuffs and Sam came down hard, almost collapsing on top of her when his hands were free, like he'd been sitting too close to the edge of bar, like he was too shaky to do anything else. His feet had been on barstools, but someone… probably Jake had knocked one of the barstools away when Jess had shoved him. That left Jess with a double armful of very heavy boy, pinning her and staring down at her with wide, tired eyes.

Jess felt another sharp burst of rage, at herself and at everyone. His ass was bare, hanging out, and she hooked her fingers through the belt loops of his jeans as he steadied himself, tugging them up.

"Sorry," he whispered and Jess could only nod. She didn't want him to apologize; she just wanted it to never have happened. "A porta inferi erue… erue Domina animam meam."

"I don't speak Latin, Sam," she snapped and then took a deep breath. Being angry wasn't going to help. It just made him stare at her like he'd been slapped and it was her fault anyway, not watching to see what space his head had slipped into. Not watching period.

He just nodded and swallowed visibly. "Sorry, Jess. I'm really sorry, I thought—"

"Don't be sorry, I know better than this," Jess whispered just as unsteady as he was and didn't ask what he meant this time. "I really, really know better." Jess knew better than anyone how it could go so so wrong if the domme wasn't attentive, didn't watch, didn't fucking care.

She zipped him up carefully and then took his wrists in her hands and just held on for a moment. He said nothing, not even in Latin, didn't even look at her and she just closed her eyes for a moment before she could move. Anything else she had to say, well, this was so not the place for it. "Let's get out of here."

"Bye guys," Jess said, over her shoulder, not really looking at Dee or Jake or the others, because it wasn't really their fault. They weren't the ones responsible for drawing the line between the game and whatever else. She was the one who'd fucked this scene up.

She stumbled home, half-supported by and half supporting a silent Sam, seething inwardly. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Fucking amateur. Sam probably hated her, even if he wasn't saying anything.

Too drunk. Hard to walk. Somehow she did it anyway, walked and walked until they were almost home, silent, counting footsteps, counting breaths. Sam all but poured her into her car and drove them home, while Jess stared out the window, falling in and out of sleep.

By the time they got home she felt almost sober, just kind of heavy. Sam had to tug her out of the car but she batted him away when he tried to carry her. That was a mistake, she almost planted face first into the pavement when Sam came to a jerky stop right in front of their building.

"Okay," he said, out of nowhere, like he was somewhere completely different in his head than she was. He caught her when she stumbled, his long arms around her shoulders steadying her before she could actually fall. He settled her against the doorstoop and then just stared down blankly, almost looming. "Okay. See. I just. I."

He stopped, stared and shook his head then turned around. Turned back toward her and made a wild, meaningless gesture and then spun back on his heels. Jess winced and wrapped her arms around her stomach. It was so easy to forget how damn big he was until he had to loom like that and remind her. She shivered.

"I'm sorry. I'm really—" she began, only the be cut off when Sam turned back around and abruptly dropped to his knees in front of her, right there on the pavement.

"I just wanted to give you what you wanted," he said, too fast, like the words were spilling out. His eyes looked black in the yellow streetlight. "Like your other boyfriends gave you. Like Connie gave you. You should have what you want."

Jess shook her head. Not Connie, Jesus. How could he even think that, Jesus. "No. No, it's not—I need you to want it too for it—"

"It's not like I haven't done it before," Sam continued right over her, like she hadn't spoken at all. He pressed his hands down on top of hers, too hard, and his eyes were wild. "I've done it before. I've done it for everyone; it doesn't even feel bad anymore. Why shouldn't I do it for you? I… you're Jess. You're you. I wanted to do it for you and it shouldn't feel bad."

"No you didn't," Jess whispered. She tried not to wince under the bone-crunching grip of his hands. "I don't need a sacrifice. I don't want that."

Sam just knelt there and stared at her, black eyed and still. "But you like that. That's what you like. I should be able to do that for you."

Jess couldn't help it. She sputtered out something that might have been a laugh or a sob. "Jesus. Fuck. No." She reached out and cupped Sam's stiff, still face between her hands, rubbing her thumbs over his cheeks. "No, that's not what I like, it's not," she said, and she kissed him, slow and delicate.

He just took it for a moment, like a creature carved in stone and then he gasped once and came to life under her hands. He kissed back beautifully, like he was starving to death, like she was food and cool water. Until she was panting into his mouth, gasping.

When he spoke again, his voice was still unsteady, but solid. He gave a tiny half-smile. "Okay. Here's the thing; I know what to do. We're both kinda drunk, right? So I call do-over."

Jess blinked. It took her a second to close her mouth, to even realize it was hanging open. She wanted to plant her face in his shoulder. "Hey, what?" she said intelligently.

"Do-over. Mulligan," Sam muttered. He gave her a quick look from under his lashes and then looked away. "Come on, it's only fair, right?"

"But I—but you—" Jess stuttered, because this time he really wasn't making any fucking sense. "That's ridiculous! You can't—"

Sam took a deep, audible breath. Then he shrugged. "Of course we get a do-over. It's section four, article seventeen of the Fuckups Handbook. When drunk, you always get one do-over."

"Fuckups Handbook?" Jess repeated carefully. Sam gave her a brief but hopefully smile and her lips twitched in spite of herself. She kept on staring at him.

"My older brother's a jackass," Sam said almost blithely, as if that followed the rest of their conversation. "So he of course he had a Fuckups Handbook."

"Your older—you have an older brother? You never told me that," Jess muttered. Then she shook her head. Not gonna let herself get distracted, even by raging, drunken curiosity. "Anyway, I'm the one that fucked up."

Sam sucked his lower lip under his teeth for a moment and then shook his head. "I promised you that you could trust me to say something if… you know. And I didn't," he said softly. "So do I get a do-over?"

Jess covered her face with her hands and laughed, just one hysterical peal. She was losing her fucking mind. "Yeah. Okay. But only if you still want one when you're sober."

Sam reached out very gentle and pulled one hand away, covering it with his own. "Deal," he whispered. And then, even softer, "Hey, Jess?"

"Hey what?" Jess whispered back. She still had half her face covered with one hand and watched him out of that eye, peeking between her fingers.

"You. I wanted you to stop," he said. She blinked and nodded, because duh. Yeah, she'd gotten that part. "I wanted you to stop and… you did. That—thank you."

Jess drew in a sharp breath, but she nodded and let him wrap an arm around her shoulder and lead her upstairs. She was half undressed for bed before she even realized that she was crying. Crying for the first time that day, silently and unsteady, dripping like a faucet. Connie was dead and Sam… Jesus.


	3. Supernatural Fic: Shame is the Shadow of Love (3/4)

Sam didn't ask her why she was crying, but she thought that maybe it was because he already knew. Kind of obvious. Instead he just settled in next to her, the weight of him making the bed creak. His hands twitched against his thighs, but he was quiet. Just waiting.

"What is it?" Jess finally asked. She could taste salt and sorrow and see the tension in his eyes.

"It's… would it be a big deal to ask for it now?" he mumbled. She could see the red of a blush spreading under his tan. "The do-over. I mean it—in there, at the club. You, with your mouth and I- I-" he stammered to a close and gave her a small, helpless smile, like smiling would cover the look in his eyes.

Jess smiled back even though she still tasted salt, because it was the easiest thing. She covered his hand with hers, stroking gently over the knuckle. "I got you all hot and bothered and didn't get you off, you mean? That is kind of unfair. To leave you like that."

She could feel some of the tension easing from Sam's skin as he recognized the cadences of their personal game. He shrugged. "If that's what you want, ma'am, it's fine."

She threaded her hand through his, squeezing his fingers tight. "Okay," she whispered. "Let's see. Let's see how bothered you can be. Let's take it easy, though. No talking, just do what I say."

Sam nodded wordlessly, watching her. Jess sighed and pulled back a little, leaning against the pillows, watching him back. Her head was pounding and mostly she just wanted to curl up and sleep, but she wasn't gonna say no. Couldn't.

"Stand up," she said, gently and he nodded and slid off the bed, taking one step away from her. Close enough that she could have hooked her ankles around his and pulled him back. "Now strip. Slowly."

Another nod, his eyes on hers, all wide black pupil. He wasn't wearing much at least compared to what he usually covered himself in. Sam stripped down to just one layer when he slept, and it was more like four or five when he was awake. Now it was just a nearly worn threadbare plain blue T-shirt and a pair of sweat pants that hung low on his hips, revealing the smooth tanned skin.

Sam was nothing like a stripper in a bar when he moved. More like a boy, alone in his room and getting ready for bed, like he didn't even see her. Like she was watching him through a window. Only the way his gaze kept flicking back to her and the slow deliberateness of his motions made it obvious this was anything like a show.

His hands were slow and steady, fingers hooking under the hem of the shirt and pulling it off. He handed it to her and her fingers clenched around it, feeling the softness of the cotton and the heat of his body. The pants were kicked off just as easily and Jess took them from his hands, her fingertips briefly caressing skin. The line of Sam's cock was visible under his boxers, and Jess could see the wetness where the tip pressed against fabric. She licked her lips and leaned forward unconsciously, like she could already taste him. She lay his things on the bed beside her and pulled a condom from the top drawer of the nightstand.

When he pulled off his boxers his cock was hard, pressed flush against his stomach. Jess stood up herself, put her hand on him and sighed at the shiver she could feel in his body. Her fingers were sticky with precome when she took his hand, and she smeared it over his palm.

"Come on," she murmured and he went, smooth and easy. Pliant when she pushed him down onto the bed, pulling his wrists up against her breasts and sighing when his hands tightened over the skin just there, gliding over the nipples.

It took just a moment to slide the thin latex over him and then she settled down, her thighs slipping over on either side of him. She sighed at the feel of the friction, skin and hair, soft over hard muscle, and lined herself up over him. She went down easy, sliding him right inside of her with only a slight grimace, her own arousal and the slick lube on the condom easing the way. He hissed in a breath and she could feel his body jerk under hers.

"Don't hold back," she said softly and leaned down to kiss the back of his hands where they pressed into her chest. "Come when you're ready." Something flickered, green and gold in his eyes and he nodded. Almost said something before he remembered the rules and visibly bit the words back.

Jess closed her eyes and moved, shivering at the feel of him sliding in and out, the weight of his hands on her. So big and so damned careful. They wouldn't leave any marks, those hands, not unless she demanded it. It shouldn't have been enough to get her there, just this, just sex, but she could feel the movement in his chest when he gasped, the arch of his spine. She whimpered.

"Fuck, I'm such a slut for you," she hissed and when she opened her eyes he was half grinning up at her, as if to say me too. That grin and then the motion of his hips when he came, the way that somehow ground his body right up against her clit pushed her over the edge. She gasped and pushed herself up and down a few more times, just riding it, riding him.

She slid back down against him when it was over, barely taking the time to ditch the condom. It was too good, the afterwards, feeling the warmth of his hands on her bare spine. His mouth was wet and right there when she angled hers right. His breath smelled of beer and heat and his tongue was lazy, opening up for her just like his body.

Jess fell asleep like that, kissing Sam, tangled up in the heat of him. Not thinking of Connie at all, not until she started dreaming.

She dreamed of Connie's tongue was black and swollen when she spoke. Connie's wrist dangling.

"You begged me before, didn't you?" Connie whispered. "You begged me to stop and I begged you not to leave. Neither of us listened. I love you, Jessica. That's why."

Jess sobbed and covered her face with her hands. "Connie," she said. "Connie. Leave me alone. You're dead. You died. I don't love you."

"I love you. And I'll never let you go, Jessica. I will never let you go." In her dream Jess screamed.

When she opened her eyes she was lying in her own bed, wide awake, hand clutched on Sam's bicep. The red numbers of the clock on the nightstand said it was 3:30 and her head was pounding. Fucking multi-colored drinks. She groaned and shoved her face back into the pillow. Sam didn't stir and Jess buried her face in her pillow until she drifted back to sleep, headache and all.

In the morning, Sam didn't speak at all, just stretched out next to her and buried his face in her hair, lazy and sated like a big cat. She ran her fingers over the bruises on his shoulders and thighs and hummed to herself, still only half-awake. Until she remembered Connie, in her dream. Connie for real. Until she remembered last night.

"Sam," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so damned sorry."

"Shut up, do-over still counts," he mumbled and rubbed his fingers up and down her spine, careless and lazy. She shivered and let him.

"I think… I think there's something we need to try," she said softly, leaning into his touch. "But, let me work it out in my head first."

"Sure, Jess, anything," he said, bright and easy as anything, like there were no nightmares, no bodies, like he could shrug it all off like water and just be here with her. If he could, then she could. She could just do this.

She kissed his cheek, tasting stubble and sweat and thought that Connie had been so wrong, so wrong about Sam after all. But then, if Jess wanted to admit that to herself, being wrong was a talent of hers too.

\

"It didn't stop when she died though," Sam says quietly. He's still got his face hidden in Jess' shoulder and her careful hands stroke his skin under the damp of his T-shirt. She feels like Jess, even if he can't smell her. She feels like Jess.

"No," Jess says. She cups her hands under his chin and lifts it until they're face to face. "You haven't been taking care of yourself." Her thumbs ease over his cheeks and the bruised places under his eyes. "You're alone."

"I'm okay," he mumbles, but doesn't break eye contact. "I have people. My brother, he, he won't let anything happen to me. He's with me."

She shakes her head and her grip tightens. "He doesn't know what you need."

"I literally can't tell him, so no, he doesn't know." Sam laughs at the stupidity of all of it, laughs until it hurts, but he can't help it. It feels bitter, helpless, like an angry kid. "Even if he knew, what could he do about it? He's my brother, he's not gonna hold me down and fuck me, just so I can satisfy my stupid curse. I can't ask him to do that."

Jess frowns and then leans down and kisses him and he can't help but moan when she pulls away. Her mouth tastes dry and bright. "You need someone who cares about you," she says and she sounds just as angry. Jess angry, thick with the frustration of not being able to help. "Someone who can take care of you."

"Look where that got you, caring about me. I think I'll stay like this," Sam hisses before he thinks about it, but Jess doesn't flinch, doesn't look upset, not at that.

Instead she kisses him again. "I love you. I'll stay with you," she whispers. "When Samhain ends, when the doors close. I'll stay."

Sam flinches. "You're not turning into a restless spirit for me," he says. "I can't think of anything worse than that." He's not loud, not angry, but her gaze falls away and she nods.

"A restless spirit," Jess whispers after a long pause. "That's what happened, isn't it? To Connie."

Sam nods. "I think so. Yeah. Yeah. For a long time I thought she was the first victim of something else, but now… yeah."

\

The fog didn't lift and no one could quite explain it. It just drifted, thick and strong, rolling over the hills like the sun couldn't touch it.

Jess was less surprised than she should have been when there was a second death. A volunteer she barely knew, just seen around on campus, shot through the neck by another one of the victims at the center. All Jess could feel was a sick twisting in her stomach, like this was news she'd just been waiting to hear. Had known she would hear.

No. What surprised her was Sam taking her by the hand afterwards, sitting her down and rubbing her back until she relaxed. Not that he did it, but what he said next.

"I think I'm going to go to that group counseling thing at the center," he said. So nonchalantly, like she hadn't pushed him to try it before. Hadn't suggested it over and over until he actually had snapped at her. Like she couldn't see how much he needed something, help, something she couldn't ever quite seem to give him.

"Why now?" she sputtered, because Jess had suggested it almost from when they started dating and of course it was now that Sam wanted to do it, now that there had been two fucking murders at the center.

Sam just shrugged. "Now's a good time for me. No exams coming up. No big papers. You've made it pretty clear you want me to do it and maybe I actually agree you have a point." He sounds so smooth, so reasonable, that Jess didn’t even know why she was scared and suspicious, but she was.

"But—I don't know. Now? It's creepy, Sam, people are dead. I don't want anything to happen to you," soft, she spoke so softly, like a confession. Like all those secrets she knew he must have even if he never talked about them. Like all those secrets she'd tell him about if he ever asked.

Sam lifted up his palms and smiled at her, slow and easy. The flaring bright confidence that usually only came out when he was doing schoolwork shone through. "It's cool, Jess. I actually can watch out for myself, believe it or not. It'll be good for me anyway." His mouth twitched. "Therapy."

Jess tried to think of an argument, but out-arguing Sam was an exercise in the futile, especially when he smiled like that. "Fine," she said. "It's a good idea. I'll come with you."

Sam just raised an eyebrow and grinned outright. "Hey, but you're the well adjusted one. No competing with me."

Jess rolled her eyes. Like he didn't know why she was coming. "Not a competition, Sam. Everyone has their issues."

"Yeah, sure, especially you, Jess." Sam kissed her lightly on the cheek, just soft and affectionate and Jess felt warmed by the gesture in spite of everything. Sam wouldn't have done that a month ago, she didn't think. It made her feel better, somehow, like even the never ending fog… like even Connie couldn't get her mood down.

She almost backed out of the first session anyway, at the last moment, a class, a paper, the queasy smell of her organic chemistry lab making her sick to her stomach. But she wasn't a coward, and if this was a good idea, it was a good idea for everyone.

It felt like a stupid idea when they actually did it. It felt like a scene from a movie about group therapy, not real life, all these women in a circle with one or two nervous looking boys around the edges. Half of them looked like they'd murder for a cigarette and Jess could sympathize even though she never really smoked.

These people were supposed to help Sam? It made Jess want to laugh.

She didn't because she could see Connie in their hands and eyes, these strange, ragged women, and that was the scary part. The way Connie held a cigarette in one hand and a whiskey sour in the other and laughed and laughed, even if nothing was funny. Out of control hands. Red flags. And Jess thought it was no wonder she had loved her. No wonder. Connie was every hurtful thing she'd ever craved after all; it was Sam who she thought might be different. Maybe.

Jess said nothing, just sat down, Indian style, right behind Sam. His body was warm and he spoke softly, and not much. She couldn't see his face from the angle she was sitting at, but she was pretty sure he spent more time looking around than speaking or really even listening. It felt like being around him when he was buried in schoolwork for whatever reason, like he was trying to pick something out, but Jess had no idea what or why.

The one time he said anything he just leaned forward, chin pressed to his palms, and said, like it was no big deal, "I think if I could have just pretended a little better, my brother wouldn't have been so disgusted with me."

Jess pressed her hand to her mouth and didn't say anything, because there was nothing she could think of to help with that. But she leaned forward and pressed her forehead down against his back, breathing in the skin warmed cotton of his shirt.

She felt him sigh and lean back just a little closer and hoped it would be enough to help.

When they looked at Jess she looked right back and said, "I let someone tie me up once, because I trusted her. It was a mistake."

Someone asked her what happened and Sam's big, broad hand reached back tightened on her thigh. Jess laughed out loud. "She cut me open with a bullwhip. Not, you know, to the bone or anything. But it hurt and I hated it and she didn't stop. Fun, right? She loved bullwhips. I loved her."

No one says anything for a long moment and then Jess shrugged and waited until someone else was talking before she tipped her head forward so that she was touching Sam again. "I want to go now. This was a stupid idea."

"Yeah," Sam whispered back, like it was no big deal. Like he was just going to let her get away with what she'd said without driving it into the ground or whatever. "Okay. It's not here now anyway."

Jess was too grateful to ask what wasn't where. It wasn't until later, when Sam was asleep and she was staring at his open notebook that she thought to question it.

The notes were neat, clearly organized and written in a short hand that was almost completely incomprehensible. Jess would have just assumed it was something for a class, accept she could pick out Connie's name in one corner, highlighted and underlined, with a little arrow pointed to it.

Underneath it, Sam had scribbled, messier than anything else on the page 'spiritual contagion?' and next to it 'victims are aggressive/abusive meaning = ?'.

Jess dropped the notebook back on the desk and squeezed her hands into fists at her side. She tried not to feel cold.

The last thing he'd written, in very, very small cramped letters was 'what's she paying for?'.

Jess could have asked him but she didn't. He didn't ask her either, not about Connie and she was so grateful for that she was shaking.

It was all so sad and sordid and unspeakable pathetic and she knew it, that night after that day in San Francisco, under the sun. A private party, a tab of acid, and the way the world splintered when Connie stared down at her with an expressionless face and a whip in her hand before the world dissolved into blood and nightmares.

The hospital afterwards, because the blood had freaked Jess out so bad and she'd called her mom like a dumb little girl. God, Jess felt so sorry for her mom, coming to bring her to the hospital. She was never going to forget the look on her parents' faces when she didn't talk to them about what happened because she couldn't, because there weren't any words and… everything. Everything.

Connie had come to the hospital and cried and stammered out actual apologies. One after the other, the only time Jess could remember the word 'sorry' passing her lips. Apologies while Jess could only stare at her blankly, couldn't even say a single word to her. Could only wonder where Connie got the nerve to show her face and why Jess couldn't get the nerve to just make her go.

What Jess remembered the best about those days was the dark eyed woman who walked into her room. Strangely familiar until Jess finally recognized her. She looked different cleaned, hair washed and dressed in hospital scrubs instead of wandering the streets of San Francisco.

She smiled and patted Jess' hand a little too gently. "It will be all right now, querida," she murmured, as if she were Jess' mother and not a total and utter stranger. "I know it doesn't seem that way, but it will all be better now."

Jess remembered staring after her long after she was gone and kept staring, right up until Connie came back. Connie's eyes were red rimmed and her lashes were wet. It made her ugly. She was ugly when she cried.

Jess had looked her right in the eye and said right out, "I love you. I did. But I never want you to touch me again."

So that was the way it went.

\

 

"I'm sorry," Sam says, because he doesn't know what else to say.

"I think someone hurt her first," Jess says back, like it's an excuse. "I was lucky, you know? It didn't mess me up too bad, what she did."

Sam snorts. His eyes roll, white and a little wild. "If she weren't dead, I'd kill her. Fuck, if she weren't cremated, I'd dig her up and burn the corpse."

Jess just pressed a palm against his cheek. "That's how I feel about everything that hurt you," she says. "Even now."

Sam shrugs and looks away. "Yeah, I guess." He scratches one arm and stares at it. "Here's the thing. She was cremated. After the third murder, Connie was cremated."

"Yes," Jess nods, letting the subject change though Sam can feel her twitch in annoyance. "So?"

"So, ghosts shouldn't be able to stay around without something to keep them here. And, it makes sense because that's when the murders stopped. Until now." He shivers and closes his eyes. The cold of the rain feels like its settling into his bones.


	4. Supernatural Fic: Shame is the Shadow of Love (4/4)

The third one was the first Jess saw with her own eyes.

The third crazy was a guy. He couldn't have been quite eighteen and he was rail thin, with wrist bones too wide for the rest of him. He'd been around a lot, Jess had seen him, but this time he had a gun and he screamed incoherently, like the world was falling down around him. Jess had never seen a gun, not in real life, not in a real person's hands, but somehow she reacted to his voice, the horror and loss in it.

She thought he sounded like Connie.

"You don't want to do this," she said. She held out her hands, as if to touch him even though she wasn't close enough, not nearly close enough. "Let us help you. Let me help you."

The boy shuddered and Jess could only imagine what this looked like from the outside, her walking toward him with slow, careful steps.

"I love you," he said softly, hard to understand through chattering teeth. Like he was taking to someone who wasn't Jess at all. "What have I done? I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Jess only shook her head and took a step closer. His eyes were brown, she could have sworn they were brown until he blinked and they were blue and green and brown, like Connie's eyes, like Sam's. "It will be okay," she said, because she had nothing else to say. "Just put down the gun, okay?"

He shook his head and raised it higher, pointing it at her chest. It looked sleek and black and wicked, but Jess kept her gaze on his eyes. His eyes flickered and they were brown. They were brown. "It's you, isn't it?" he whispered. "You sinned. You're the one she wants. You brought this down on us."

The gun clicked. "I'll make her leave me alone," he said.

Jess thought, oh fuck, holy Jesus, and, someone tell my mother I was good, I wanted to be good. She thought, Sam, I think I love you, try to be happy, just try. And she stared into those broken brown eyes as a boy whose name she didn't even know squeezed the trigger.

Later, they told her no one even saw Sam move, he was that fast. Jess didn't see him at all until he was suddenly there in front of her, until he tackled the boy and knocked the gun out of his hands. It clattered on the floor and she flinched as if the gun really had gone off.

"Sam," she whispered, and he looked up at her with huge, wild eyes, almost as insane as the boy with the gun. He stepped over the boy where he was stretched unconscious on the floor and went to her.

"Jess. You can't do that," he said. "You're crazy you can't—" Jess just shook her head and buried her face in his shoulder. She was shaking so hard, or maybe it was Sam pressed against her who was shaking. She couldn't tell. "I thought you were gonna die," Sam hissed.

"Yeah," she said. "Me too."

"No!" he said and he was yelling, but Jess couldn't care. "No, you're not allowed to die. I think—you have to stay with me. No leaving."

"I won't. I won't," she promised, and she didn't even realize she was crying, except the cloth under her face was getting damp and Sam's arm.

There were questions, so many damn questions from the police and everyone else until she was swaying on her feet and the whole thing felt less than real. Jess let Sam take her home, half-carrying her really, like she weighed nothing.

He talked nonsense, but it was more than she'd heard out of him in a while. "This one time, my brother Dean—god, that dumbass—he did something like that. Worse. So stupid, it was this 7-11 and someone tried to stick it up," he whispered and Jess just nodded, half listening as he told some hair raising story about Dean.

Sam's eyes were so soft while he spoke, so easy, as if he talked to Jess about Dean all the time instead of never so much as mentioning his brother's existence before everything had happened. She couldn’t help but remember the sound of his breathing, sharp and tense, during that stupid therapy session, 'I think if I could have just pretended a little better, my brother wouldn't have been so disgusted with me.' He hadn't looked at her then at all. She hadn't cried then but this time if she cried he'd just think it was the shock and horror and never mind it, never know it was for him too.

It was only that Jess was so tired of crying. It was only that she couldn't stop and she was going to start growing mold or something. It made her sick to her stomach, and that just made the crying worse.

She didn't say anything until he had her home and on the bed, speaking softly to her and rubbing her back in slow, soothing circles. "Sam," she said, her voice as slow and careful as his hands. "I've been thinking there's something I want you to do for me."

"Okay," he said, soft, right up against her ear. "Tell me."

"C'mere," she muttered and shifted in his arms, wiggling until they were face to face. He sighed, soft and ready and opened his legs when she slid her hands down and over his belt and she knew he had no idea where she was going with this, not yet.

Not until she tugged the belt free of his jeans and twisted it once, twice, a third time around her own wrists. It was thick and black, making her hands and wrists look small and delicate in a way they usually weren't. It was tricky to do by herself, but she moved fast, before he could say anything.

Sam was shaking hard enough for her to feel the tremors when she held out her hands to him, offering. "Awkward, I know," she said softly. "But sometimes we work with what we have at hand. I think you need to know what this feels like."

"Jess," he whispered, and shook his head, pushing her hands back toward herself. Careful, gentle, but still so strong. Enough to make her skin warm up under his touch. "I don't. I can't. I never."

"It's okay. I've done it both ways," she said and smiled up at him. The loose straps of the leather slid against his open palms. "It's a good thing."

"I don't want to hurt you." His eyes were huge and nearly blue. Like he was fragile. "That's not. I don't want to do that."

"My safeword is sunlight. I can use it," she whispered in reply. "But you don't have to hurt me. I'm not really into that."

"Connie," Sam said. Just that. After what Jess had told him, it was enough.

Jess shrugged and pressing her wrists into his hands, letting the buckle bite into his palms. "Connie. She's dead." She bit her lower lip. "Dead. Sam. Won't you do this for me?"

He took a slow, ragged breath, like his lungs were closing in on themselves. He muttered something under his breath that sounded almost like, "not so sure" but he didn't pull away.

She could feel him decide, even before his hands closed around the belt. "Please," she whispered and he nodded. His hands moved, slow and hard, tightening it around her wrists and making her wince, making every tight, twisted muscle in her body relax.

He pushed her hands up, pressing them into the pillow over her head and she closed her eyes. One hand cupped her cheek and she could feel him shaking so hard, so damned hard.

"Jess," he whispered. His other hand slid under her shirt, down her spine. There were scars there, healed almost to invisibility. You couldn't tell by looking at her, not her face, not her back. Sam's fingers rubbed over them, gentle despite the rough feel of callused flesh. "I'm sorry." Like it was his fault. "I hate this."

With her eyes closed, Jess found she could speak. It felt okay, like a confessional. "I loved her. I mean I did what you're supposed to, right? I broke it off. Couldn't sleep with her anymore after that, of course. I did what you're supposed to do. So it doesn't make sense I didn't stop loving her. Isn't that fucked up? Isn't that funny?"

"No. It's not." Sam put his mouth on her mouth and Jess sighed, parting her lips, squeezing her eyelids tighter. He tasted of beer and metallic sweetness. He kissed her a second time, firmer, but no less careful, like he was marking out new territory. "Open your eyes," he coaxed, "and look at me."

"Can't," she whispered, shaking her head. The fine ends of his hair tickled her cheeks when she moved.

"Then we can't. Do this," he said with a soft finality Jess almost didn't recognize.

She shivered and shook her head again, harder. Her lashes fluttered and her eyes stung. She could smell Sam's breath, the raggedness of it. "Please," she whispered. His thumb felt warm, careful on her cheek and she sighed.

"Jess," he said, and there was something so steady and serious in his tone that she couldn't not listen. "Please. Open your eyes. And look at me."

Her eyes snapped open, and there he was, up close, like she knew he'd be. "Sam," she mumbled. He bit his lip, staring down at her, searching her face. "Please," she begged. "Please, please, please. Just. Do it. Just do it. You have to."

"I can't—" His eyes were wide and he shook his head, but she just kept gasping out little pleas, feeling pathetic and knowing she was, until he shuddered hard. "Fine," he stuttered. "Fine, okay."

It wasn't. Jess could see it in his face that it wasn't. Sam fucked like he'd never done it before. His bangs covered his eyes and he moved like he was made of poorly strung together metal, stiff and jerky. When she could see them his eyes were wide and his fists clenched. It was clumsy and weird and he didn't quite touch any of Jess' hotspots, and he damned well knew them well enough to find them.

She whimpered and tried to reach for him but he pushed her hands down, shaking his head over and over, like he didn't see her at all. It left her moaning and dissatisfied, almost good enough and clinging right to the edge. He kept thrusting, out of rhythm, teeth grinding and then unclenching.

His mouth hung open, but he twitched away when she tried to kiss him. "Sam," she said and arched into it, whimpering. It wasn't helping but she moved against his body until she ached inside, sore and raw. Until he finally just stopped, just went still inside her and looked at her. Kept looking at her like he was waiting for her to end this. When she didn't he moved again, arrhythmic and rough, making her hiss.

"Sam," Jess hissed, finally shifting back after him. "Sammy. Stop it." He shook his head, muscles twitching against her. "Stop now."

That was enough, like she'd given him permission. He stopped, almost too abruptly, but she caught his hips before he had the chance to pull out of her. "Jess," he mumbled.

"Give me your mouth," she said, firm and gentle. He whimpered once and then nodded, finally letting her kiss, letting her push him down and set the rhythm for them both, bring them off. There were faint tremors from Sam's body that seeped under her skin, everywhere. She sighed. So much for letting him know what it felt like.

After, he lay there watching her, stroking her hair with slow, careful fingers. "Why are you even with me, Jess?" he whispered. His eyes were dark in the dim light.

"What?" she mumbled. "You have a big dick, I guess." Her head was spinning from the fuck and she barely knew what he was asking. "Don't ask dumbass questions."

"I. I'm serious. It's a serious question," he said. Not loud, but his voice echoed and he was all but glaring.

"Seriously, because I like you. Why are you with me?" she muttered, before it occurred to her she'd never actually asked him that before. She'd made all kinds of assumptions and guesses, but she'd never thought to ask.

He shrugged, full bodied and his mouth quirked into a half smile. "Cause I'm lucky. You're the best thing that ever happened to me," he said easily.

Jess nodded and ran a palm over his bangs, brushing off his forehead. "There you go."

"Connie hated me," Sam said suddenly, as if that were right on topic.

"You don't know that," Jess said back just as quickly, even though she damned well did know that. Disdained. Was jealous of. Hated. It was all the same shit.

"Sure I do. She told me." His mouth twisted and he leaned into her palm. "I stole her girlfriend. I'd have killed her myself if I'd known what she did to you."

"She fucked me over before I even met you. She lost her girlfriend herself," Jess said, and ignored the second part. Connie and love and the taste of blood, and Jess had never realized, never even thought before now how much Sam kept it all away, kept her from having to be afraid of it. She wanted to close her eyes, but she didn't want to run away from Sam like that. "She had no right to tell you anything different."

"I didn't know that then," Sam whispered, like that was a huge secret. "You didn't tell me."

Jess just shook her heads. Secrets… yeah. "You know all my secrets now." I don't know any of yours. Not one, Sam. She didn't say that. It wasn't true anyway, she knew things, even if they were things he'd said out loud. Jess knew about Sam.

"I wish I could tell you everything about me," he said back anyway, like he heard the unspoken words. So much that they weren't saying. It made her ache.

"What do you think it was?" she asked softly. "The fog. It won't stop. Connie. That boy, those two girls before—he was, they—what do you think it was?" Like all those things were connected. Like they were all the same thing.

Sam's hand went still. "It?" he asked in a tone Jess couldn't quite understand. "I don't know what you mean with that, Jess."

Jess bit her lip lightly and shivered, despite the warmth of Sam's body. "I don't think I know what I mean either," she admitted. She was tired; bone weary and her eyelids were too heavy. "I just, it was all weird. What you said before… like a disease? Contagion? I think—I think it's going to happen again."

Sam frowned. "No," he said, like he had no doubt at all. "No. I won't let it." He sounded so sure of himself that Jess nodded and stroked his hair.

"Hey, Jess?" he asked softly, when Jess had thought he was asleep.

"Yeah?" she mumbled.

"Connie… her funeral's tomorrow, right?" he sounded reluctant, like he didn't want to ask.

"Yeah, just for her friends. It's-- her parents aren't even coming down. It's pathetic. They're just going to cremate her once the autopsy results are in or something." Sam didn't say anything else, so Jess stopped talking too, until she could finally sleep.

In the morning Sam went off to class while she pretended to be asleep and watched him out of slitted eyes.

\

"Okay," Sam whispers. "So, she was cremated and the deaths stopped." He shakes his head. "And then on the anniversary, the deaths start up again. It's actually a pretty common pattern. Except for the part where she was burned."

Jess cocks her head and frowns. "Who died?"

"No one we knew," Sam assures her quickly. It shouldn't matter, but it does. Just strangers. Sam is used to dead strangers. "But. I have to find out what's keeping her here. What's letting her come back."

Jess' frown deepens. "Well, I don't know. I guess there must be something if you say so, but you don't get a complete ghost manual when you die."  
"Huh, no?" Sam says and smiles in spite of himself. Her hair feels soft under his hands. "Too bad. But, you knew her. I was actually hoping you could tell me something about what she might have. Ties to the world, a favorite object, something?"

Jess' head shakes. "I have no idea, I just-- except, no, wait. Wait."

\

Jess almost didn't go to Connie's funeral. She slid in the back, though, and listened to people talk about her like she'd been good, like she'd been whole. Not many people, most of Connie's real friends wouldn't be caught dead in a church, but enough. It felt fake.

Jess slipped out the back just as easily as she'd come in. Her head ached like three days worth of hangover for no reason at all. She was so busy rubbing the space between her eyes she almost crashed head long into the woman she'd seen twice before, on a street in San Francisco and in a hospital ward.

"You," Jess said. "Why are you here?"

"Marta. My name is Marta," the woman said, all calm and smiles. Which was something. The mystery woman was a real person with a real name. "When a bruja dies you need to take some precautions, make sure she doesn't come back."

"Okay," Jess said, because she didn't know what else to say. Connie was dead and there was no point arguing about it with a crazy woman.

Marta nodded. "Your boy will know what to do I would guess. If he knows what he's dealing with."

"My boy?" Jess repeated blankly. She took a step back and wondered if she should be afraid. Marta just shrugged.

"You like to close your eyes too much, girl. You love a bruja and don't see, you take a brujo to your bed and don't watch. You're so blind one day you're going to wander into the road, maybe get hit by a car." It was the longest speech Marta had ever made. Jess didn't look at her and thought that maybe she should call the campus police or something.

"You gotta be careful," Marta said and smiled, like she was Jess' mom and telling her what was best for her. "You have a good soul, steady, kind. You look like shelter to those who are less steady. At least that brujo of yours don't mean to hurt you."

Jess frowned and tried not to assume that Marta meant Sam. "Leave him alone," Jess said softly, as if one ragged woman could do anything to anyone. "That's all I want. Whatever it was that Connie was, Sam's not like that."

"I'm not what he should be afraid of. He has great potential," Marta said. Her eyes were soft, kind. Insane. "Potential isn't often left in peace. Watch out for him."

Jess sucked in her lower lip. "You better leave before I call the cops," she said. "Leave him alone."

Marta just nodded and covered her head with a thin shawl before walking away. Jess hurried home, looking over her shoulder the whole time. The place was empty, quiet. Dark.

She lay down on the couch, waiting for Sam and she might have fallen asleep right there. Or else she didn't. Maybe she was awake. Maybe she wasn't sure. All she knew was she closed her eyes in her empty place and when she opened them a strange man was sitting on her coffee table right across from her, smiling at her.

The man's eyes were yellow and all she could feel was soul deep horror when she met them. She'd never seen him in her life, but she knew evil when she met it.

He tilted his head and just kept right on smiling at her. "You're such a nice girl after all, Jessica Lee Moore. Not like your Constance."

"Connie—" she began, shaking her head.

"Connie is with me now," he said, almost gently. Jess winced from his tone. "She made deals for power, you see, fair and square. She didn't realize what a problem getting rid of her obstacles would be, but that's not our fault, is it? She wasn't a nice girl at all, Jessica. But you knew that. Still… you. You are a nice girl."

"What do you want?" Jess whispered. She didn't want this. To hear about Connie making a deal, any kind of deal, or all the ways she wasn't nice. She fucking well knew. This couldn't even be real. She was dreaming. It was her crazy subconscious.

"Oh, no it's very real and not about what I might want. No, no, it's more like what you want. I'm going to make you an offer, Jessica Moore. An offer so generous it will blow your mind." He snapped his fingers and they were in the bedroom. It was early, the sun barely peering through the window and Jess could see Sam curled up in the corner of their bed, cocooned in blankets like he was freezing even in the soft California spring.

The horror in her stomach thickened when the yellow man knelt down by the bedside and smiled, almost tenderly. "Don't touch him," Jess snapped, instinct forcing out the words. "Get away."

The yellow man turned and laughed. "See, a nice girl! You're a little late, Miss Moore. He's already been touched by something like me. But you knew you weren't getting a virgin, didn't you?"

Jess shook her head, just taking a quick step forward, putting her body between Sam and… and that. The man stopped, drew away from Sam and inclined his head, like Jess had made a move. Like Jess had stopped him.

"But, really, my offer is very good," he said, careless and easy. "It's a simple thing, really. Normally I make people like you give up their souls for what I'm going to give you, but you… I won't even ask you to give up the use of sweet Sammy's body."

Evil Jess knew. This was evil. "I don't want anything you can give me," she spat.

"No? But I can give you your Connie." He grinned when Jess made a low, trapped sound. "What do you think of that? She really did love you, you know. Poor little Connie, so scared she drove you away."

"No—"

"All I want is one thing. Take these off the boy." The yellow man reached past Jess like she wasn't even there and caressed the air right over the places were Jess had cuffed leather onto Sam's wrists. "The symbolism is unpleasant. Burn them, keep them, give them away."

"Fuck you," Jess whispered. Defiant. She wanted to sound defiant, not terrified.

"Well, think about it," he whispered. "You still have some time."

Jess sat up screaming, like she was being taken into a full-bodied embrace by Connie's broken, rotting body. But when she looked, there was no one in the apartment, no one at all. She was alone.

She put on a pot of coffee and sat there, just wanting Sam to get back, to be there, wide and solid, with his overflowing pages of notebook and careful hands and the bands that he wore on his wrists that meant he was hers.

\

"Holy shit," Sam gasps. He hurts. He arches away, struggling out of Jess' arms, but she twists and keeps him close when he fights. He shouldn't be weaker than her, but she's not alive, not anymore, and her strength is different. She holds him tight as a tantruming child, rocking him close until he stills against her.

"I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Why didn't you tell me that?" he sobs into her breast.

"I thought it was just a dream," Jess whispers, slow and soothing. "I'm sorry. I would have, but I didn't believe in it, you know? I'm sorry."

"You should have let me go. You should have let him have me," Sam says bleakly, like she hasn't said a word. "Why didn't you?"

"Don't be an idiot," Jess says. There's another pause.

Sam just stars blankly at Jess, who is dead, who is not here even if she's sitting beside him, holding him. Who is under the cold, wet dirt, rotten and broken, not here, sucking her lower lip between her teeth and looking into his scared, tired eyes. He wonders why she doesn't slap him, why she doesn't leave him.

"I'm so damned tired of you looking at me like that," she says. "I love you. I wanted to protect you. I'm just sorry it didn't work." Her thumb traces one of his bare wrists.

Sam flushes and looks everywhere but at her. "Sorry," he whispers. "You should have taken them off. I just did it anyway, took them off, after you… after you died." He doesn't say she died for nothing, but he doesn't think he has to. She must already know.

"They were just a symbol, Sam. That I was going to take care of you. That's all," she tells him like she gets exactly what Sam's thinking. "Forget it," Jess says.

"I can't," is all Sam can say.

Jess nods. "Anyway, I think, Marta might know. Looking back, I think maybe she was like you."

"A hunter. You think she was a hunter," Sam says and it feels good to think about that instead. A hunt, something to burn, a goal. Not just every way he failed.

Jess rubs her hands over his wrists and up his palm. "I wish I could tell you more. That's it, though." There's a moment of quiet. "Does your brother know you're here?" she asks suddenly, like that's on topic.

Sam blinks. "What? No, I couldn't have told him that. He'd. He wouldn't understand." Dean would freak out, worry. Dean would be sickened, maybe, if he had to hear too much about Sam and what he'd done. Sam had already put enough of his shit on Dean and he knew Dean didn't want to know about it.

"I think he might if you tried him," Jess says. "He could help you."

"He does help me," Sam says, like that should be obvious. Just thinking about Dean helps him relax, working the case from his angle right now, probably. Or maybe even asleep by now. "He puts up with a lot from me."

Jess' mouth twists. "If he loves you like I love you--"

"He's my brother," Sam interrupts. "I'm not going to ask him to tie me up and fuck me, Jess. I can get that anywhere."

"Whatever, Sam." She sighs. "You can get that from me. Tonight. You could get that from me."

"What?" Sam stares at her. She's solid. She's been touching him, holding him all night. She's solid and here. He never even thought about that.

She smiles and pins one of his wrists up against the cold, wet granite. "I can. We can."

Sam shudders. He can feel it, the warmth in his body, the response even under the mind numbing cold. She's here. "It's cold here, Jess," he whispers.

"Is that your car?" Jess looks out of the lot and onto the dark, watery street. There was only one car parked there, almost swallowed up by the night. An American car, sleek and black and parked right on the corner. The Impala. "That car?"

"That's Dean's car." Sam can't quite figure out what she means for a half second, too slow and stupid and then he knows. She tugs him to his feet and in spite of everything Sam half expects her to dissolve when they step out of the circle he's drawn around her grave, but she doesn't.

"Sam?" Jess asks carefully, eyeing him when he hesitates.

"Yeah," Sam says. "Yeah, okay." Just like that it's decided and they shuffle over to the Impala like uncertain children.

"Come on," Jess urges, and Sam nods and opens the door for her and helps her inside. Dean would kill him for bringing a ghost into his car, Sam thinks. Maybe. Dean would kill him for a lot of things, though.

Sam drove in silence, but he couldn't stop looking at Jess, like she's going to disappear at any second. She will, he knows that. At dawn the spell breaks and she goes back unless he does something to keep her here and he can't, he can’t, he won't.

"Where are we going?" Jess asks softly.

Sam just shakes his head. "Somewhere dry," he whispers. He thinks maybe a motel or something, but he just has lint in his pockets, Dean has the cards right now. Then he sees a place, tucked out of the way. A tree, wide leafed and sheltering. Not quite dry, but good enough.

Jess opens the car door when he stops, like she sill has to, like she can't just walk right through. She comes around the other side and pulls Sam out, tugging him along until they're both settled on the hood.

She kisses him. Her mouth is cold and his hands reach down to cup her cheeks involuntarily. That makes her grin. "You wanna drive, Sam?" she whispers.

He shakes his head, but he keeps holding onto her gently, but firmly. Kissing again like he wants to suck her open, because he knows this is it. This is it. Never again, he never will again. "I love you," he says. "I'm in love with you. How about that?"

"Ditto?" she whispers, like it’s a question. The next thing she says is no question at all. "So, you're driving then. Good, about time."

Sam just shrugs but he keeps rubbing his thumb down the line of her cheekbone, soothing and gentle. "Can I take off your jeans?" he croons into her ear, like he is whispering endearments. He doesn't think about how it's weird that she's wearing jeans when she was buried in a dress. Jess always wears jeans. "Can I?"

Jess shivers under his hands like she can feel cold, or like his touch is burning her. "Fuck," she mumbles. "Yeah, yeah." Her hips are wide and her waist is narrow, flat and soft. Sam's hands are almost big enough to go all the way around.

He thumbs her fly button open with absolute concentration, like this is the only thing in the world. He thinks if he didn't he'd shake apart, he'd fumble, he'd die.

"I wanna," he whispers. She's beautiful and his stomach hurts, his dick hurts, and she's gone, but she's his. Her hands are on him, just pushing down the zipper of his soaked jeans and tugging his dick out of his boxers. Sam pulls her panties down hard. They don't tear under his grip, but somehow they’re gone, out of the way. "Is it okay?" he begs.

"Sam, just do it," she hisses, arching into his touch. "I said yes before we got here."

"Say it again," he asks her. "Again." He can feel the muscles and skin, like she might be ready to scream when he lifts her up, quick, with just his hands. She feels so light, like she weighs nothing at all and her bare legs are dry and cool against his thighs. "Say you wanna. Do it, Jess."

"Yes. Fuck you. I want you to fuck me."

"Yes, ma'am," he says, and there's salt and rain water on his mouth, in his eyes, and the hood of the Impala is hot and wet under his bare ass when she pushes him down and straddles him.

She's slick, tight, all around him and he groans, can't help it, can't move. Enraptured by her face, by her hair, glinting as if there were sunlight.

"Fuck me right now, damnit," she says and then her tongue is in her mouth. She drags her hands down his back and then they both move.

"Jess. I love you," he tells her, because that and his body are all he can give her. Can’t even give her life. He moves hard, one thrust and she's wrapping her legs around his waist and they go.

She moans and his hands just tighten on her ass cheeks, knuckles kneading into flesh. One thrust and he was pulling her back up. Then again. She grabs onto his shoulders with both hands, tugging herself up, almost climbing him with pressing heels and scrambling hands and digging nails.

Again. He can smell himself sweat and water and salt, but not her, even when she mouths blindly at the juncture of shoulder for a moment before she bites down, hard. He whimpers and the world goes white, until they're both sinking. Sliding right off the car and onto the pavement, Jess loose-limbed and smiling in Sam's arms. Just breathing until he finally moves. Until he tilts her chin up and kisses her again, gently, so damned gentle. Like there is only her.

His forehead stays pressed against hers, warm and damp against her cool skin. "Was that what you wanted?" he says.

"Is this how you used to feel?" he whispers a second later, when she says nothing. "When you looked at me?"

"How do you feel?" Jess whispers back, like she doesn't know.

"You. You're beautiful," he says. "You're beautiful and you're here with me. You want to be here with me."

"Yeah. Yes. I want to." It feels like it shouldn't be true. She shouldn't want to.

He kisses her forehead like a benediction. "Me too," he whispers and he doesn't say that it's his fault they're not together, that Jess is dead because of him. She knows by now. She knows by now.

"Good?" Sam says instead, because he wants to pretend it's okay. She looks up at him and smiles, outright grinning, and he can't help feel just a little smug with it.

"Yeah, you kiss real good, ego boy," she says lightly and smacks him on the nearest available skin.

"That's good. Dean would kill me if--" Sam pauses and almost laughs, shaking his head. He thinks maybe Dean wouldn't mind so much. Not that he'll tell him. He just needs to come up with some way to track down Marta, to finish this, but he knows it won't be that hard. The hard part is done. "Never mind."

"It will be okay," Jess says. Her mouth is gentle on his. The sky is going gray behind her, the first hints of sunrise. Sam whimpers and closes his eyes, because he didn't want to see that. Not yet. "Say it, Sam. Say it will be okay." Her voice is stern, an order.

Sam bites his lip and shakes his head. "I miss you," he says instead. "Like my heart. Like my head."

"I won't leave until you say it will be okay," she says harshly. Her eyes flare, like she's going to fight, like she's going to yell and Sam just hangs his head, ready to take it. It's his fault. She sighs softly and kisses his cheek instead of yelling. "I wish you would believe me."

"Me too, I wish," Sam whispers. "But I'm glad. I'm glad I called you. I'm glad you came."

Jess' mouth moves, but before she can say anything else the first rays of sun slide over her fair, cold skin and she shifts in his arms. Between blinks Sam is holding air.

He stays still for a long moment and then shakes himself, hops off the hood and pulls on his pants. It's cold. It's going to be a long day.

 

For the rest of the Blue Moon series go [here](http://vaingirlfic.livejournal.com/20354.html?style=mine#cutid8)


End file.
